Allowance for a 16 year old in the United States
At sixteen the law sets the rate in most of the countries here. The pocket wage is simply the real junior wage, paid at home.
A 16 year old in the United States earns
$7.25an hour
About $36.25 a week if they do 5 hours of paid jobs. That's the real legal minimum for their age. From here the law sets the rate, not us.
Worked out from US Department of Labor — State Minimum Wage Laws, rates from July 24, 2009.
The rate at every age in the United States.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in the United States.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 14, the legal minimum in the United States is $7.25 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 16 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.
Sixteen year olds can work legally almost everywhere, and the minimum wage that applies to them is the one Pocket Wage uses. That is the whole design: the family rate and the market rate have met, and a first job is a change of employer, not a change of world. Jobs at home are now priced exactly as an employer would price them.
If they have a job outside the house, the Jobs Board keeps going for the jobs they still do at home. If they do not, the pocket wage is a fair, legal-rate wage for real work, and the payslip they have been reading since twelve is the one they will recognise on day one of employment.
The payslip at 16
Identical to a real payslip. If you have been running Pocket Wage since they were small, this is the eleventh pay rise and the five hundredth payday or so. Graduation is next.
The Jobs Board at age 16, $7.25 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Run the whole house for a weekend | 6 hr | $43.50 |
| Full garden maintenance | 2 hr | $14.50 |
| Wash, vacuum and detail the car | 1 hr 30 min | $10.88 |
| Babysit younger siblings for an evening | 3 hr | $21.75 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in the United States.
The United States has a federal minimum wage that has not changed since 2009, and thirty states plus DC set a higher one. The federal minimum working age for most jobs is fourteen, and a fourteen year old is owed the full minimum wage where they live, apart from a few states that permit lower youth rates.
Pocket Wage anchors on your state's minimum wage at fourteen and draws a straight line back to zero. Choose your state at the top: a five year old in California is on a very different ladder from one in Georgia, because their parents are too.
Fourteen for most non-farm work under federal law, with limits on hours during school. Some states set their own rules. The minimum wage applies from the first hour.
Source: US Department of Labor — State Minimum Wage Laws, rates from July 24, 2009.
By state
The rate for an 8 year old, worked out from each one's own minimum wage.
- Alabama$4.14
- Alaska$8.00
- Arizona$8.66
- Arkansas$6.29
- California$9.66
- Colorado$8.66
- Connecticut$9.68
- Delaware$8.57
- District of Columbia$10.51
- Florida$8.00
- Georgia$4.14
- Hawaii$9.14
- Idaho$4.14
- Illinois$8.57
- Indiana$4.14
- Iowa$4.14
- Kansas$4.14
- Kentucky$4.14
- Louisiana$4.14
- Maine$8.63
- Maryland$8.57
- Massachusetts$8.57
- Michigan$7.85
- Minnesota$6.52
- Mississippi$4.14
- Missouri$8.57
- Montana$6.20
- Nebraska$8.57
- Nevada$6.86
- New Hampshire$4.14
- New Jersey$9.10
- New Mexico$6.86
- New York$9.14
- North Carolina$4.14
- North Dakota$4.14
- Ohio$6.29
- Oklahoma$4.14
- Oregon$8.89
- Pennsylvania$4.14
- Rhode Island$9.14
- South Carolina$4.14
- South Dakota$6.77
- Tennessee$4.14
- Texas$4.14
- Utah$4.14
- Vermont$8.24
- Virginia$7.30
- Washington$9.79
- West Virginia$5.00
- Wisconsin$4.14
- Wyoming$4.14
Questions parents ask about 16 year olds.
Should a sixteen year old still get pocket money?
Not pocket money. A wage for work at home, at the same rate the law says an employer must pay them. Family Duties stay unpaid, as they always were.
What is the minimum wage for a sixteen year old?
The rate on this page, from the official source linked below. It is the legal junior rate for this country, not a Pocket Wage estimate.
What happens when they get a job?
Graduation. The rate at home and the rate at work are the same number, so the first payslip from a boss looks exactly like the one from home. That was the point of every birthday since five.
How much allowance should a kid get by age?
The old rule of a dollar per year of age per week gives a ten year old ten dollars for nothing. Pocket Wage pays a rate instead: your state's minimum wage scaled to their age, for the jobs they do.
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.