12 October 2026 · 15 min read
Kids and Money Statistics 2026: Allowance, Literacy, Teens and Costs
Every figure on this page is one sentence with its source, sample and date attached, so it can be quoted on its own. Where two surveys disagree, both are listed with the reason. Last verified 12 October 2026; the next scheduled update is after the US Consumer Expenditure release on 29 October 2026.
The short version
- Nearly nine in ten US parents say they are comfortable talking with their children about money, and about half have opened a youth account for one (U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, 3,004 adults, April 2026).
- Allowance averages disagree by measurement: parents report $37 a week (Wells Fargo / Ipsos, 2025), app data shows $13.15 (Greenlight, 2025) and a $10 median (Till, 9,135 families). In the UK, pocket money including chore pay averages £9.74 a week (NatWest Rooster Money, 2026).
- 30 US states require a standalone personal finance course for graduation; 76% of public high school students will take one by the class of 2031 (NGPF, 2026). Gen Z adults answer 38% of financial literacy questions correctly, the lowest of any generation (TIAA Institute / GFLEC, June 2026).
- 36.5% of US 16-to-19-year-olds had a job in July 2026 (BLS); teens self-report spending $2,213 a year (Piper Sandler, October 2025); 42% say they are terrified of not having enough money (Junior Achievement / Wakefield, 2025).
- A family of four in the US spent $109,002 in 2024 (BLS); full-time child care averaged $13,184 a year per child in 2025 (Child Care Aware of America); kids who buy digital goods spend about $284 a year on them (Acorns Early, 2026).
The numbers about children and money come from bank surveys, app data, government statistics and academic papers that each measure something slightly different. Each figure below is stated once, with who measured it, how many people, and when. Secondary sources are marked as such. Figures older than 2024 appear only where no newer measurement of the same thing exists, and their year is in the sentence.
How to read it: a parent survey records what parents say; app data records what families actually set up; a government survey records a weighted national sample. When they disagree, which they do on allowance in particular, the gap is itself the finding. Every source is listed in full at the end, and the deeper treatment of each topic is linked from its section.
How parents talk to children about money
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| Nearly nine in ten US parents say they are comfortable talking with their children about money | U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, 3,004 US adults including 763 parents, 21–23 April 2026 |
| About two-thirds of US parents have started, or plan to start, teaching basic money management before their child turns 12 | U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, April 2026 |
| Nearly nine in ten parents say their own spending and saving habits are among the most influential factors in their child’s financial understanding, above schools, peers and social media | U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, April 2026 |
| About half of US adults say money was rarely or never discussed at home when they were growing up: 49% of baby boomers recall money being discussed, against 62% of Gen Z | U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, April 2026 |
| 81% of US parents say their current financial stress made them realise how important it is to teach their kids about money; 64% say money is tight and they have become more transparent with their children | Intuit, 2,000 US parents of under-18s, fielded via Pollfish, March 2026 |
| 79% of parents say they are more transparent about money with their children than their own parents were; 71% talk to their kids mainly so they avoid the parents’ own mistakes | Intuit, March 2026 |
| 38% of parents show their children what rent, utilities and household bills cost; 57% involve them in grocery shopping; 66% say no to purchases more often and explain why | Intuit, March 2026 |
| 32% of parents question their ability to teach their children about finances; 37% struggle to explain financial concepts; 33% worry their stress is scaring their children more than educating them | Intuit, March 2026 |
| Only 15% of US parents talk about money with their child weekly | Greenlight / YouGov, 1,028 US parents, 10–23 October 2025 |
| Children whose parents had frequent financial discussions in front of them were far more likely to feel confident managing their own money: 50% against 14% | T. Rowe Price Parents, Kids & Money Survey, 1,000 parents and 881 children aged 8–14, 2015 |
The pattern across these is a generation that talks more than its parents did and is unsure it is doing it well. The age-by-age version of what to say when is in when to teach kids about money.
Allowance and pocket money
No two allowance surveys agree, because parents over-report and app data under-counts cash, so the parent surveys and the app data are listed side by side.
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| US parents report an average allowance of $37 a week | Wells Fargo / Ipsos, 1,587 US parents of children aged 5–17, 28 April – 8 May 2025 |
| Greenlight’s account data puts the average weekly allowance at $13.15 across ages 5 to 19: $6.18 at five, $8.53 at ten, $11.59 at thirteen and $21.47 at seventeen | Greenlight in-app data, 2025, 6.5 million+ US families |
| Allowances set up in-app average $17 a week with a $10 median | Till Financial, 9,135 US families, 2025–26 |
| 57% of US parents pay a regular allowance, and 73% of those pay it in cash | Talker Research for Achieve, 2,000 US parents, 14–23 April 2025 |
| UK children receive £9.74 a week on average including chore pay, up 6.7% from £9.13, or £506.48 a year; regular pocket money alone averages £3.94 | NatWest Rooster Money Pocket Money Index 2026, 500,000+ Rooster Card users, 1 March 2025 – 28 February 2026 |
| Nearly a third of UK children do chores as a condition of their pocket money | NatWest Rooster Money, 2026 |
| Children aged 8–14 who receive an allowance are twice as likely to feel knowledgeable about managing money: 32% against 16% | T. Rowe Price, 2015 |
| Giving children their own money regularly, staying involved in how it is spent and talking explicitly about saving raised the likelihood of saving as an adult by 16% and the amount saved by about 30%; an allowance on its own had no measurable effect | Bucciol & Veronesi, Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, Dutch DNB Household Survey panel |
Amounts by age, and why the parent figure is nearly three times the app figure, are in how much allowance by age.
Chores, and paying for grades
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| 67% of US parents use money as an incentive for chores, and encourage their children to save an average of 35% of what they earn | Prodigy Education, 1,000 US parents |
| Greenlight families logged 73 million completed chores and $242 million in allowance earned in a single year | Greenlight Family Trends report, December 2025 |
| US parents pay an average of $13 for babysitting a sibling, $11 for yard work and $12 for a good report card | Talker Research for Acorns Early, 2,000 US parents, 22–29 September 2025 |
| 48% of US parents pay for good grades, at an average of $16.60 per A | AICPA / Harris Interactive, 2012 |
| Paying 38,000 students $6.3 million for grades and test scores had a statistically zero effect on state test scores; paying Dallas second graders $2 per book read raised reading scores | Fryer, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2011, randomised trials in four US cities |
| Children who rarely did chores in kindergarten had significantly higher odds of scoring in the bottom fifth for academic self-perception, peer relationships and life satisfaction three years later | White, DeBoer & Scharf, Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 2019, 9,971 children |
| Participation in household tasks at age three or four was the best predictor of success in the mid-twenties | Rossmann, University of Minnesota, 2002, longitudinal study of 84 children |
The chore rates and the evidence on what to pay for are in how much to pay kids for chores and should you pay kids for good grades.
Saving and accounts
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| 93% of US parents of under-18s have done something to teach their child about saving; 45% encourage savings goals; 41% have opened a savings account; 38% use a piggy bank or jar; 28% use a digital equivalent | NerdWallet / The Harris Poll, 2025 |
| About half of US parents have opened a youth account; among those who have not, almost a quarter say their child is not ready and more than one in ten do not know where to start | U.S. Bank / Morning Consult, April 2026 |
| Share of children with a savings account by school level: 57% in elementary, 71% in middle school, 78% in high school; children using a credit card: 6%, 11% and 22% | Prodigy Education, 1,000 US parents |
| Parents’ average suggested ages: a checking or savings account at 12, a debit card at 15, a credit card at 19 | Prodigy Education |
| When teens receive money, 36% save part of it for the future, 23% save for education and 13% invest | Junior Achievement / Wakefield Research, 1,000 US teens aged 13–18, 3–10 February 2025 |
| US children born from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2028 receive a $1,000 federal seed deposit in a Trump Account, launched 4 July 2026, with up to $5,000 a year in further contributions; nothing can be withdrawn before 18 | US Treasury programme, 2026 |
| Money split across two labelled envelopes came to 72% more saved than the same amount in one | Soman & Cheema, Journal of Marketing Research, 2011, field experiment with 146 participants |
What the research says actually moves saving behaviour, and what does not, is in how to teach kids to save money.
Financial literacy and school
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| 30 US states require a standalone personal finance course for high school graduation: 11 in force for the class of 2026 or earlier, 19 phasing in for the classes of 2027–2031 | Next Gen Personal Finance, State of Financial Education Report 2026 |
| Once every requirement is in force, 76% of US public high school students, the class of 2031, will take a personal finance course; in 2020 the standalone count was eight states | Next Gen Personal Finance, 2026 and 2025 reports |
| 39 states require personal finance coursework to graduate when the 13 states that embed it in another subject are included | Council for Economic Education, 2026 Survey of the States |
| California requires a stand-alone one-semester personal finance course from the class of 2031; every high school must offer it from 2027–28 | California Assembly Bill 2927, signed 29 June 2024 |
| 45% of US high schoolers took a personal finance class in 2025, up from 31% in 2024; 64% of them found it extremely or very helpful | Junior Achievement / Wakefield Research, February 2025 |
| 83% of US adults want their state to require a personal finance course for graduation; 61% say their own high school did not offer one; 82% of those who attended high school wish they had been required to take one | NEFE / SurveyUSA, 800 US adults, 3–5 March 2025 |
| 89% of US parents think states should require a high school personal finance course; 51% say they received no financial education at school; 17% say it was required when they were growing up | Intuit, March 2026 |
| US 15-to-18-year-olds score an average of 64% on the National Financial Literacy Test | National Financial Educators Council, 2026 results |
| US 15-year-olds scored 505 in PISA financial literacy, statistically level with the OECD average of 498; 17% fall below the baseline Level 2, against 18% across the OECD | OECD, PISA 2022 Results Volume IV, US factsheet (OECD notes US sampling standards were not fully met) |
| US adults answer 47% of personal finance questions correctly; Gen Z answers 38%, the lowest of any generation; only 36% of questions about risk are answered correctly; the annual average has never exceeded 52% | TIAA Institute / GFLEC Personal Finance Index, June 2026 |
| 80% of US teens have never heard of FICO credit scores or do not understand their purpose; 43% believe an 18% interest rate on debt is manageable; 68% think retirement saving can wait | Junior Achievement / Wakefield Research, February 2025 |
| 47% of UK children aged 7–17 have received a meaningful financial education, unchanged from 48% in 2019: 33% recall useful lessons at school, 24% at home, 10% both; Scotland 52%, Wales 51%, England 46%, Northern Ireland 43% | Money and Pensions Service, UK Children and Young People’s Financial Wellbeing Survey 2022, 4,740 children, published June 2023 |
| Core money habits are largely formed by age seven | Whitebread & Bingham, University of Cambridge for the Money Advice Service, 2013 |
What the school course will cover, what it cannot, and the home job around it are in how to teach a teenager about money.
Teenagers: jobs, spending, and how they feel about money
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| 36.5% of US 16-to-19-year-olds were employed in July 2026, up from 35.2% a year earlier, against 67.5% of 20-to-24-year-olds; 21.3 million 16-to-24-year-olds held a job, and youth unemployment was 9.1% | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Unemployment Among Youth — Summer 2026, 20 and 26 August 2026 |
| US teens self-report spending $2,213 a year, down 6% year on year | Piper Sandler, Taking Stock With Teens, 9 October 2025, thousands of US teens |
| 42% of US teens are terrified they will not have enough money for their future needs and goals | Junior Achievement / Wakefield Research, 1,000 teens aged 13–18, February 2025, ±3.1 points |
| 87% of US teens say they learn best when they can apply what they are learning to real-world situations; 65% say their school does a good job teaching what will help them be financially successful; 68% feel optimistic or hopeful about the future; 55% are concerned about AI’s effect on their ability to get a job | Junior Achievement / Ipsos, 1,005 teens aged 13–17, 29–30 June 2026, ±3.5 points |
| 64% of US parents of 18-to-28-year-olds say their Gen Z children depend on them financially; 56% of those parents say it is straining their own finances | Wells Fargo 2026 Money Study, 30 March 2026 |
| 54.5% of US adults think children should manage their own money before 18; the most common age chosen is 15 to 17 | MyBankTracker / Google Surveys, 742 US adults, July 2019 |
| 48% of US parents of children under 18 took on holiday debt last season, averaging $1,324, against 37% and $1,223 for consumers overall | LendingTree, 2,000+ US consumers, published 5 January 2026 |
A first-year plan for a teenage budget, from the first payslip to stepping back, is in how to teach a teenager about money; the seasonal spike is in how much a family should spend on Christmas.
Digital money, games and cash
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| 80% of US children aged 6–17 are familiar with in-game virtual currency; 42% can say what a stock is, and only 21% of six-to-nine-year-olds | Acorns Early Money Matters Report for Kids 2026, Opinium, 2,000 US parents and 2,000 children aged 6–17, 6–14 July 2026, published 11 August 2026 |
| Children who buy digital goods spend an average of $23.60 a month on them, nearly $284 a year; across all children, including non-buyers, the average is $18.52 a month | Acorns Early, 2026 |
| 60% of US children aged 6–17 are familiar with buy-now-pay-later, and 30% say financing groceries that way is a sound decision | Acorns Early, 2026 |
| Cash accounts for 14% of US payments; four in five consumers used cash in the past 30 days, and 76% carry some, averaging $69 | Federal Reserve, 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, published May 2026, data collected October 2025 |
| People who wrote down what they had spent rated their appetite for the next purchase at 3.80 out of 10, against 5.26 for card payers on identical spending | Soman, Journal of Consumer Research, 2001 |
| Designs likely to mislead children about real value, reward odds or whether an upgrade is necessary were found in 14 of 15 popular Roblox experiences analysed | Carter & Vekhande, University of Sydney, 17 May 2026 |
Why the first money most children meet is designed not to behave like money, and the one habit that puts the signal back, is in teaching kids about money in a cashless world.
Kids’ money apps: scale and prices
Prices are from each provider’s own page, read on 8 October 2026, and change often.
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| Greenlight serves more than 6.5 million US families; plans start at $5.99 a month for up to five kids | Greenlight, December 2025 report and pricing page, October 2026 |
| Acorns Early (formerly GoHenry US) costs $8 a month for Early Lite or is included in Acorns Gold at $12; ages 6–18; no free tier | Acorns, October 2026 |
| FamZoo costs $5.99 a month per family, or $4.99 prepaid for 12 months, with a no-card IOU mode at the same price; BusyKid costs $4 a month billed annually | FamZoo and BusyKid, October 2026 |
| NatWest Rooster Money’s card costs £1.99 a month or £19.99 a year for ages 6–17; its Virtual Tracker tier, with no card and no deposits, is free | NatWest Rooster Money, October 2026 |
| Starling Under 16s (ages 6–15), HyperJar (6–15) and Capital One MONEY Teen Checking (6+) charge no monthly fee; each requires the parent to hold an account with that provider | Provider pages, October 2026 |
| Barclays is acquiring GoHenry’s UK business, which serves around 500,000 children, from Acorns; completion is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and the brand will stay | Announced 12 June 2026; reported by FStech, 15 June 2026 |
| Typical card products cost $50 to $100 a year, every year, from sign-up until the child has their own bank account | Derived from the prices above |
The whole market, sorted by what you pay and what the child actually holds, is in money apps for kids without a debit card; whether a card teaches anything on its own is in do kids need a debit card to learn about money.
What children cost a household
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| The national average annual price of child care was $13,184 in 2025, 10% of the median income of a two-parent household and 33% for a single parent; for two children in a center, the price exceeds median rent in every state with data | Child Care Aware of America, Child Care in America: 2025 Price & Supply, 13 May 2026 |
| The average employer family health premium was $26,993 in 2025, of which the worker pays $6,850 | KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey, 22 October 2025, 1,862 firms |
| Four-person US households spent an average of $109,002 in 2024, or $9,084 a month, on a pre-tax income of $161,716; housing took 31.5%, transport 17.9% and food 13.3% | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, released 19 December 2025 |
| Feeding a family of two adults and two children aged 6–11 costs between $1,018 and $1,675 a month depending on the plan, assuming nearly all meals are cooked at home | USDA Food Plans, May 2026 |
| Canadian couples with children spent C$109,142 on goods and services in 2023, C$33,166 more than couples without children | Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023, Table 11-10-0224-01 |
| UK households of two adults with two children spent £883.20 a week in the year to March 2025, excluding mortgage payments from the housing line | ONS Family Spending, Table A23, published 11 June 2026 |
The category-by-category version for three countries is in how much a family of four spends a month.
How to use and cite these figures
Each row can be quoted on its own with the source given beside it; the full citation, including sample size and field dates, is in the Sources list below. When a figure here differs from one you have seen elsewhere, check what was measured: a parent survey, app data and a government sample will give three different answers to the same question, and each is correct about what it measured. This page is re-verified when a major source publishes, and the verification date in the lead changes when it is. Two releases are due soon: the BLS Consumer Expenditure data for 2025 on 29 October 2026, and KFF’s 2026 employer health benefits survey, which has historically published in late October.
How this works in CapKin
The limits first. CapKin holds none of these benchmarks and gives no financial advice; it will not tell a household whether its allowance is above or below the average. It has no card, no bank connection and no way to move money. The children’s learning content is written for ages 6 to 12, a child uses it only through a parent’s household account, the interface is in English, and it is in beta and free while it is.
What it does is give a child a ledger inside the household budget: their own pocket money record, entries that stay pending until a parent approves them, savings goals a parent can lock, and badges for what they do with money. That is the mechanism the research above keeps pointing at, a child’s own money, recorded by the child, with a parent who sees it. What each age gets is on the kids page, and every product claim is stated in full on the product facts page.
Give them their own ledger in the family budgetFree during beta · No card · No bank connection · Parent approval on every entry
Sources
- U.S. Bank. U.S. Bank Survey: 67% of Parents Talk Money Before Age 12, But Still Need Tools to Take Action, press release 30 June 2026. Online survey by Morning Consult, 21–23 April 2026, 3,004 US adults including 763 parents or guardians of children under 18, weighted to the US population.
- Intuit. Money Mentorship: How Today’s Parents are Prioritizing Financial Literacy for Their Kids, 31 March 2026. Survey commissioned by Intuit in March 2026 of 2,000 US parents with children under 18 in the household, fielded through Pollfish.
- Greenlight / YouGov. Survey of 1,028 US parents, 10–23 October 2025, in the Greenlight Glimmers family trends report, December 2025. Greenlight in-app allowance data for 2025 and the Greenlight Family Trends report, December 2025 (6.5 million+ US families; 73 million completed chores; $242 million in allowance earned).
- T. Rowe Price. Parents, Kids & Money Survey, 2015, 1,000 parents and 881 children aged 8–14, as reported by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, 8 September 2015.
- Wells Fargo / Ipsos. Study of 1,587 US parents of children aged 5–17, 28 April – 8 May 2025, published July 2025. Wells Fargo 2026 Money Study, 30 March 2026.
- Till Financial. Anonymised allowance data from 9,135 US families, 2025–26.
- Talker Research for Achieve. Survey of 2,000 US parents of children aged 18 and under, 14–23 April 2025. Talker Research for Acorns Early. Survey of 2,000 US parents of school-aged children, 22–29 September 2025.
- NatWest Rooster Money. Pocket Money Index 2026, 10th annual edition, data 1 March 2025 – 28 February 2026 from 500,000+ Rooster Card users, published 30 June 2026.
- Bucciol, A. & Veronesi, M. (2014). Teaching children to save: What is the best strategy for lifetime savings? Journal of Economic Psychology, 45, 1–17.
- Prodigy Education. Financial Literacy: A New Core Subject? Survey of 1,000 American parents, average age 44.
- American Institute of CPAs, survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 2012.
- Fryer, R. G. (2011). Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1755–1798.
- White, E. M., DeBoer, M. D. & Scharf, R. J. (2019). Associations Between Household Chores and Childhood Self-Competency. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 40(3), 176–182. Rossmann, M. (2002). Involving Children in Household Tasks: Is It Worth the Effort? University of Minnesota.
- NerdWallet, survey conducted by The Harris Poll, 2025, US parents and teaching children about saving.
- Soman, D. & Cheema, A. (2011). Earmarking and Partitioning: Increasing Saving by Low-Income Households. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(SPL), S14–S22. Soman, D. (2001). Effects of Payment Mechanism on Spending Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(4), 460–474.
- Next Generation Personal Finance. State of Financial Education Report 2026 and advocacy post, April 2026; 2025 report for the 2020 baseline. Council for Economic Education. 2026 Survey of the States. California Assembly Bill 2927, signed 29 June 2024.
- Junior Achievement USA and MissionSquare Foundation. JA Teens & Personal Finance Survey, press release 4 April 2025. Fielded by Wakefield Research, 1,000 nationally representative US teens aged 13–18, 3–10 February 2025, margin of error ±3.1 points.
- Junior Achievement USA and Ipsos. American teens are optimistic about the future and highly value real-world learning, 28 July 2026. 1,005 US teens aged 13–17, 29–30 June 2026, credibility interval ±3.5 points.
- National Endowment for Financial Education. Poll: Majority of U.S. Adults Continue to Want Financial Education in High Schools, 29 April 2025. SurveyUSA, 800 US adults, 3–5 March 2025.
- National Financial Educators Council. National Financial Literacy Test, 2026 results for ages 15–18.
- OECD. PISA 2022 Results (Volume IV): How Financially Smart Are Students? Country factsheet, United States: mean score 505 against an OECD average of 498; 17% below Level 2 against 18%. The factsheet notes caution is required because one or more PISA sampling standards were not reached in the United States.
- TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. 2026 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index, June 2026. US adults answered 47% of the 28 index questions correctly; Gen Z 38%; risk questions 36%; the annual average has never exceeded 52%.
- Money and Pensions Service. UK Children and Young People’s Financial Wellbeing Survey 2022, 4,740 children aged 7–17 and their parents, fieldwork by Critical Research, published June 2023.
- Whitebread, D. & Bingham, S. (2013). Habit Formation and Learning in Young Children. University of Cambridge / Money Advice Service.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment and Unemployment Among Youth — Summer 2026, 20 August 2026 (USDL-26-1411), and The Economics Daily, 26 August 2026. Consumer Expenditures — 2024, 19 December 2025, with four-person consumer unit figures from the Consumer Expenditure Survey as published by FRED.
- Piper Sandler. Taking Stock With Teens, fall 2025 survey, press release 9 October 2025.
- MyBankTracker. Survey of 742 US adults aged 18+, Google Surveys, 17–19 July 2019, ±3.7%.
- LendingTree. Holiday debt survey, published 5 January 2026, more than 2,000 US consumers.
- Acorns Early. Money Matters Report for Kids 2026, published 11 August 2026. Survey by Opinium Research of 2,000 US parents and 2,000 children aged 6–17, 6–14 July 2026.
- Federal Reserve Financial Services. 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, published May 2026, data collected October 2025.
- Carter, M. & Vekhande, S. (2026). Misleading and Deceptive Monetisation in Roblox. University of Sydney, 17 May 2026.
- Greenlight, Acorns, FamZoo, BusyKid, NatWest Rooster Money, Starling Bank, HyperJar and Capital One pricing pages, read 8 October 2026. FStech, Barclays to acquire youth banking platform GoHenry, 15 June 2026.
- Child Care Aware of America. Child Care in America: 2025 Price & Supply, 13 May 2026. KFF. 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, 22 October 2025, 1,862 firms.
- US Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. Official USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home, May 2026 (Thrifty plan from the USDA report; other plans as quoted by WTOP, 8 July 2026). Statistics Canada, Table 11-10-0224-01, 2023. Office for National Statistics, Family Spending workbook 2, Table A23, FYE 2025, published 11 June 2026.
- US Treasury. Trump Accounts, launched 4 July 2026: $1,000 seed deposit for children born 1 January 2025 – 31 December 2028, up to $5,000 a year in further contributions.
- CapKin product facts, last verified 4 August 2026 — the product claims in the final section are stated there in full.
Frequently asked questions
- What percentage of parents talk to their kids about money?
- Nearly nine in ten US parents say they are comfortable talking with their children about money, and about two-thirds have started or plan to start before the child turns 12, according to a Morning Consult survey of 3,004 adults for U.S. Bank in April 2026. Comfort and frequency differ: a YouGov survey of 1,028 parents for Greenlight in October 2025 found only 15% talk about money with their child weekly. About half of US adults say money was rarely or never discussed at home when they were growing up.
- What is the average allowance in 2026?
- It depends on who measures it. Parents told Wells Fargo and Ipsos in 2025 that they give $37 a week; Greenlight's account data for 2025 shows $13.15 a week across ages 5 to 19, from $6.18 at five to $21.47 at seventeen; Till Financial's data from 9,135 families shows a $17 mean and a $10 median. In the UK, NatWest Rooster Money's 2026 index puts regular pocket money at £3.94 a week, or £9.74 including chore pay, which is £506.48 a year. Parent surveys run higher because they absorb gifts and top-ups.
- How many states require a personal finance class to graduate?
- 30 states require a standalone personal finance course for high school graduation, according to Next Gen Personal Finance's 2026 report: 11 already in force for the class of 2026 or earlier and 19 phasing in for the classes of 2027 to 2031. When all are in effect, 76% of US public high school students will take one. The Council for Economic Education counts 39 states if the 13 that embed personal finance in another subject are included. In 2020 the standalone count was eight.
- What percentage of teens have a job?
- 36.5% of US 16-to-19-year-olds were employed in July 2026, the seasonal peak, up from 35.2% in July 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate for 20-to-24-year-olds was 67.5%, and 53.8% across the whole 16-to-24 group, with 21.3 million young people holding a job and a youth unemployment rate of 9.1%. The figures come from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted.
- How much do kids spend on in-game purchases?
- Children who buy digital goods spend an average of $23.60 a month, nearly $284 a year, on products that exist only online, according to the Acorns Early Money Matters Report for Kids published in August 2026, based on an Opinium survey of 2,000 US parents and 2,000 children aged 6 to 17. Across all children, including those who spend nothing, the average is $18.52 a month. The same survey found 80% of children familiar with in-game virtual currency and 42% able to say what a stock is.
- What is the financial literacy rate for Gen Z?
- Gen Z adults answered 38% of the 28 questions in the 2026 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index correctly, the lowest of any generation measured, against 47% for US adults overall. Questions about risk were the weakest area at 36%. The index's annual average has never exceeded 52%. Among teenagers, 15-to-18-year-olds scored an average of 64% on the National Financial Educators Council's 2026 test, and 80% of US teens told Junior Achievement in 2025 they had never heard of FICO scores or did not understand them.
- How many UK children receive financial education?
- 47% of UK children aged 7 to 17 have received a meaningful financial education, according to the Money and Pensions Service survey of 4,740 children published in June 2023, essentially unchanged from 48% in 2019. 33% recall useful money lessons at school, 24% at home, and only 10% both. Scotland scored highest at 52%, then Wales 51%, England 46% and Northern Ireland 43%. The UK's national goal is two million more children receiving a meaningful financial education by 2030.
- Does paying kids for good grades work?
- The largest experiments say no. Roland Fryer's randomised trials paid 38,000 students across four US cities a total of $6.3 million for grades and test scores, and the effect on state test scores was statistically zero. The arm that worked paid for inputs: Dallas second graders earned $2 per book read, and reading scores rose. 48% of US parents paid for grades at an average of $16.60 per A in a 2012 AICPA survey, and a 2025 Talker Research survey put report-card money at $12 on average.
- How much does child care cost in 2026?
- The national average annual price of child care in the US was $13,184 in 2025, about $1,099 a month per child, according to Child Care Aware of America's report published on 13 May 2026. That is 10% of the median income of a two-parent household and 33% for a single parent. In every state with data, the price of center-based care for two children exceeds median rent, and in most states it exceeds a mortgage payment.
- How many kids use Greenlight?
- Greenlight reports serving more than 6.5 million US families, with 73 million completed chores and $242 million in allowance earned logged in a single year, according to its December 2025 family trends report. Its plans start at $5.99 a month for up to five kids as of October 2026. Acorns Early, formerly GoHenry in the US, costs $8 a month; in the UK, GoHenry serves around 500,000 children and is being acquired by Barclays, with completion expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.
- What percentage of parents have opened a savings account for their child?
- About half, according to two surveys from 2025 and 2026. U.S. Bank's Morning Consult survey in April 2026 found about half of parents had opened a youth account; among those who had not, almost a quarter said their child was not ready and more than one in ten did not know where to start. NerdWallet's Harris Poll survey in 2025 found 41% had opened a savings account, while 93% had done something to teach their child about saving. Prodigy's survey of 1,000 parents found 57% of elementary-age children, 71% of middle schoolers and 78% of high schoolers have a savings account.
- When were these statistics last updated?
- Every figure on this page was verified on 12 October 2026 against the source listed beside it, and the full citations with sample sizes and field dates are in the Sources section. Older figures, such as the 2015 T. Rowe Price survey and the 2012 AICPA survey, are included only where no newer measurement of the same thing exists, and their year is stated in the sentence. The page is re-verified when a major source publishes; the BLS 2025 Consumer Expenditure data is due on 29 October 2026.