Pocket money for a 7 year old in Australia
Seven is the age of systems. A seven year old will run a job the same way every time if you show them once.
A 7 year old in Australia earns
$4.54an hour
About $10.22 a week if they do 2¼ hours of paid jobs. That's 17.2% 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 7 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.
Jobs with a routine suit this age: unload the dishwasher, feed and water the dog, wipe the bathroom bench. Fifteen minutes is now fine. Seven year olds are also old enough to be shown the standard time and told why it exists: the job pays for how long it should take, not how long it took, so dawdling costs them and getting good pays them.
Expect the first negotiation around now. The answer is that the rate is not up for discussion, because it comes from the law, not from you. That sentence does more parenting than any chart.
The payslip at 7
Jobs, pay, balance. If they want to save for something, write it on the payslip so they see the gap close each week.
The Jobs Board at age 7, $4.54 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Unload the dishwasher | 10 min | $0.76 |
| Feed and water the dog | 10 min | $0.76 |
| Wipe the bathroom bench | 10 min | $0.76 |
| Fold the tea towels | 15 min | $1.14 |
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 7 year olds.
My seven year old wants more money for the same job. What do I say?
That the rate is set by their age and the country's minimum wage, and it goes up on their birthday. Haggling is what pocket money teaches; a pocket wage removes the haggle.
How much pocket money does the average seven year old get?
Surveys in most countries put it at a few dollars or pounds a week, given for nothing. A pocket wage is usually more than that, and every cent of it is earned.
What if they refuse to do the jobs?
Then there is no pay that week, and the rate does not change. Payday still happens; it just shows zero. Never dock money for behaviour: the wage is for work, and only for work.
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.