Pocket money for a 9 year old in Australia
At nine the jobs start to look like the ones you do, and the rate has climbed enough to be worth planning around.
A 9 year old in Australia earns
$5.84an hour
About $17.52 a week if they do 3 hours of paid jobs. That's 22.1% 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 9 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.
Nine year olds can wash the car, clean the bathroom mirror and sink, cook a simple breakfast for the family, and rake the leaves. Half-hour jobs are fine. They are also old enough for the timer game: race the standard time and see the effective hourly rate go up when they beat it. That is the first time most kids understand what efficiency means.
Watch for the moment they ask what a job is worth before agreeing to do it. That is not greed. It is exactly what a working adult does, and it means the model is working.
The payslip at 9
Jobs, pay, interest if you pay it, balance. Nine year olds can be shown last week's payslip next to this one and asked what changed.
The Jobs Board at age 9, $5.84 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Wash the car | 30 min | $2.92 |
| Clean the bathroom mirror and sink | 15 min | $1.46 |
| Make breakfast for the family | 20 min | $1.95 |
| Rake the leaves | 30 min | $2.92 |
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 9 year olds.
Is nine old enough to earn by the hour?
Yes. The rate is scaled to their age, so an hour of a nine year old's work pays less than an hour of a fifteen year old's. That is how junior wages work in the real economy too.
How do I stop them rushing the job badly?
A job is not done until it is done properly, and it does not pay until it is done. Standard time rewards speed, but the parent still signs it off.
Can they propose their own jobs?
They should. A kid who spots that the garage needs sweeping and asks what it pays is doing exactly what the system is for. You set the standard time; it joins the board.
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.