Pocket money for a 14 year old in Australia
Fourteen is a year from the real economy in most countries, and the payslip should say so.
A 14 year old in Australia earns
$9.08an hour
About $43.13 a week if they do 4¾ hours of paid jobs. That's 34.3% of the minimum wage in Australia.
Worked out from Fair Work Ombudsman — Annual Wage Review 2026, rates from 1 July 2026.
The rate at every age in Australia.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in Australia.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 15, the legal minimum in Australia is $9.73 an hour. Pocket Wage draws a straight line from there back to zero, and a kid's age picks the spot on it.
What a 14 year old can do, and what it pays.
Every paid job has a standard time: how long it should take, not how long it did. Dawdle and you earn less a minute. Get good at it and you earn more. There's no timer to game and no price to haggle.
At fourteen the jobs can be anything an adult does around the house, priced at the rate for a fourteen year old. Longer projects suit them: clearing out the garage, painting a fence, a deep clean of a whole floor. Two-hour jobs on a weekend, with a standard time set in advance, work well. In the United States and Canada this is already legal working age, and the pocket wage is the real minimum wage.
This is the year the household tax starts: a small slice of each payslip toward a family goal that everyone can see. Fourteen year olds understand tax the moment they see what it is buying.
The payslip at 14
Jobs, pay, interest, locked savings, household tax, and the balance. This is a full payslip: gross, deductions, net. By fourteen they can read every line and explain it back.
The Jobs Board at age 14, $9.08 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Clear out and sweep the garage | 2 hr | $18.16 |
| Paint a fence or a wall | 2 hr | $18.16 |
| Deep clean one whole floor of the house | 1 hr 30 min | $13.62 |
| Cook a full dinner and clean up | 1 hr | $9.08 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in Australia.
Australia's national minimum wage is set every year by the Fair Work Commission and takes effect on 1 July. For workers under 21 the law publishes junior rates as a percentage of the adult wage: 36.8% under 16, rising each birthday to the full rate at 21. A fifteen year old with a casual job is legally owed the under-16 rate, and it goes up on their sixteenth birthday whether or not their boss remembers.
Pocket Wage anchors on that under-16 rate and draws a straight line back to zero, so every age from five to fifteen sits on the same ramp the law uses from fifteen to twenty-one. From sixteen the site shows the real junior rate. When the Commission announces a new wage each June, every rate on this site changes on 1 July, and so does every kid's pocket wage: Pay-Rise Day for the whole country.
The age a child can legally work varies by state, usually 13 to 15, with lighter rules for things like delivery rounds. The junior minimum wage applies to anyone employed, whatever their age.
Source: Fair Work Ombudsman — Annual Wage Review 2026, rates from 1 July 2026.
Questions parents ask about 14 year olds.
How much pocket money for a fourteen year old?
At the rate for a fourteen year old, for about four and three quarter hours of jobs a week, the weekly figure on this page. In some countries this is the real legal minimum wage, not a scaled one.
What is a household tax?
A small percentage of each payslip that goes toward something the family chooses together, like a holiday. It is the first time they see money leave a payslip for a shared purpose, which is what tax is.
Can a fourteen year old get a real job?
In the US and Canada, yes, in most kinds of work. In Australia, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, some part-time work is allowed with restrictions. The pocket wage is designed to meet the real wage when they get there.
What is the average pocket money in Australia?
Surveys by Australian banks and kids' money apps typically find a few dollars a week at primary-school age, rising to ten or fifteen for teenagers, mostly given for nothing. A pocket wage is usually more, and all of it is earned.
Every birthday is a pay rise.
The app runs the whole thing: the Jobs Board, the standard times, a sacred weekly payday with a payslip, and Pay-Rise Day on every birthday. No cards, no stored money. The parent is the bank.