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Finder study reports that 53% of parents don’t give their kids an allowance

Posted: 13 February 2023 12:44 pm

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Those that do are giving their kids a collective $20.7 billion a year in pocket money.

Getting paid for doing your chores is a great way for kids to learn the value of money. And yet 53% of parents say they don’t give their kids an allowance, according to the latest finding from the Finder Consumer Confidence Index. Parents that do give their kids an allowance pay them an average $14 a week for helping out around the house, which comes to about $704 annually. That means the almost 30 million parents paying allowances give their kids about $20.7 billion a year in pocket money.

While you might assume that only children would get more than kids with siblings, parents with two kids actually give the most on average at $16 per child. But you don’t want to be one of five or more, as those parents say they give their children just $5 a week on average.

Men pay their kids more on average for doing their chores

Dads ($20) give roughly double the amount that moms ($10) pay in pocket money a week.

Allowance fairly stable between generations

From boomers ($14) to Gen Z ($15), there’s little variance in how much they say they give their kids a week in pocket money.

Kids in the West earn the most money for doing their chores

Parents in the West say they give their children $16 a week for doing their chores, compared to $11 for kids squirreling away their savings in the Midwest.

Most parents have not changed how much they give their kids

The last couple of years have been tough financially, which might explain why 70% of parents say they are giving their child the same allowance as 12 months ago. However, nearly one in five (18%) says they’re actually paying their kids less now than a year ago.

More men increasing their kids’ allowance

Roughly 17% of men say they’re paying their kids more now than a year ago, which is more than twice the number of women (8%) who say the same.

Younger generations increasing allowance for their kids

Roughly 25% of both Gen Y and Gen Z say they’re giving their kids a larger allowance than they did 12 months ago, compared to 6% of Gen X and 3% of boomer parents.

People in the Northeast cutting back on their kids’ allowance

More than one in five (22%) of parents in the Northeast say they’ve cut back on their kid’s allowance in the last 12 months, compared to just 15% in the Midwest.

The Finder Consumer Confidence Index is an ongoing quarterly survey that captures the perceptions of a nationally representative sample of 2,112 American adults and asked questions related to household finances. Results were collected October 4 to October 19, 2022.
Of those surveyed, 1,247 were parents, with 662 having children under the age of 18.
Spending figure calculated by taking the number of parents in the US, which according to the 2020 US Census came in at roughly 63 million, and multiplying the weekly spend to get the yearly total ($704) and multiplying that against the percentage of adults that said they give their children an allowance.
We define generations by the age of participants at the time of the survey:
- Gen Z — any adults born post-1997
- Millennials — 1981-1996
- Gen X — 1965-1980
- Baby Boomers — anyone born pre-1964
We define geographical regions according to the divisions of the US Census Bureau.

For all media inquiries, please contact:

Chelsea Wells-Barrett, PR, Media Relations and Communications

E: uspr@finder.com

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