Allowance for a 5 year old in the United States
Five is where a pocket wage starts, and the rate is deliberately small: the point is the habit, not the money.
A 5 year old in the United States earns
$2.59an hour
About $3.89 a week if they do 1½ hours of paid jobs. That's 35.7% of the minimum wage in the United States.
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 5 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.
A five year old can do real work if the job is short and the finish line is obvious. Put the shoes in the rack. Carry the cutlery to the table. Feed the cat, with someone watching the scoop. Each job takes five minutes at most and pays a few cents, and that is exactly right. The lesson at five is that work has an end, and the end is when you get paid.
Do not start with a chart of ten jobs. Start with two, do them at the same time every day, and hand over the money on payday in coins they can hold. A five year old understands three coins in a jar far better than a number on a screen.
The payslip at 5
One line: jobs done, and what they paid. No deductions yet. The whole point is that the number on the payslip is the number in their hand.
The Jobs Board at age 5, $2.59 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Put the shoes in the rack | 5 min | $0.22 |
| Carry the cutlery to the table | 5 min | $0.22 |
| Feed the cat | 5 min | $0.22 |
| Put the toys back in the box | 10 min | $0.43 |
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 5 year olds.
Is five too young to pay for jobs?
Not if the jobs are five minutes long and the pay arrives the same week. What is too young is a weekly amount that shows up whether or not anything happened, because that teaches the opposite lesson.
How many jobs a week should a five year old do?
About an hour and a half of paid work spread over the week, which is two or three short jobs a day. Family Duties, like clearing their own plate, are on top of that and unpaid.
Should I pay in cash?
Yes, at five. Coins in a jar make the maths visible. The app keeps the ledger, and you hand over the physical money on payday.
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.