Allowance for a 17 year old in the United States
Seventeen is the top of the ladder on this site. The rate is the law's, and the habit is theirs.
A 17 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 17 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.
By seventeen most kids running Pocket Wage have a job outside the house or are about to. The pocket wage still applies to work at home, at the legal junior rate for a seventeen year old, and the Jobs Board becomes a way to earn extra rather than the main income. That is fine. The system was never about the money at home; it was about arriving at the real economy already knowing how it works.
If you are starting at seventeen, start anyway. One year of payslips, standard times and Pay-Rise Day is worth more than none, and the rate is the real one from day one.
The payslip at 17
A real payslip in every respect. Export the job history as a first résumé: five hundred paydays of showing up is a better reference than most first jobs give.
The Jobs Board at age 17, $7.25 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Run the whole house for a weekend | 6 hr | $43.50 |
| Drive siblings to activities | 1 hr | $7.25 |
| Full garden maintenance | 2 hr | $14.50 |
| Cook and clean up dinner all week | 4 hr | $29.00 |
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 17 year olds.
Is seventeen too old to start a pocket wage?
No. The rate is the legal junior wage, the payslip is real, and one year of the habit still lands before the first adult job. Start this week.
How much is a seventeen year old's minimum wage?
The rate on this page, from the official source. In Australia it rises again at eighteen, nineteen and twenty; in the UK the next step is at eighteen.
What does Graduation mean?
The family rate has met the market rate and the first job has arrived. Pocket Wage exports the years of jobs, standard times and paydays as a first résumé, and the household becomes a former employer with a glowing reference.
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.