Your Kid Thinks He’ll Make $173,000 A Year

Posted by pfadvice
May 2, 2007

If you need a reason to set up a plan to teach personal finances to your children, a new survey from Charles Schwab Financial Services should give you the motivation. They recently gave a survey to 1000 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 and came away with some findings that show that teenagers today have high expectations on what they believe they will be earning in the future:

Teenagers today think that they are going to make quite a bit of money. The average teenager believes that they will be earning an salary of $145,000 a year. Boys believe that they will be earning a salary of $173,000 per year while girls believe they will be earning $114,000 per year. This despite the fact that the average annual salary for a worker in the US is about $40,000 today.

According to the survey, teenagers in the US get most of their money from gifts given to them (54%) while over half (52%) say that they get their money by simply asking their parents for it when they need something. Close to one-third (29%) of teenagers already have some type of debt with the average amount being $300. This is a 23% increase from 2006 when the average debt owed by teenagers was $230.

Another findings from the survey was that teenagers say that they do want to learn more about personal finances so that they can make better decisions when they are living on their own. Obviously, the schools are not teaching these fundamental lessons to the children and so it is up to the parents to help educate their children about finances.

There are a number of steps that you can take to help your child learn about the basics of personal finance and be in a much better position to understand the realities of money when they are on their own. Taking the time to educate your children will be one of the most important lessons that you teach and one that they will thank you for in their later years.

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Information: May 2nd, 2007; 5 Responses

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Categories: Making Money; Personal Finance; Work

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Reader Comments

Comment Number:: 1
Written by:: J.B.Slife
Posted on:: May 2, 2007 at 10:52 pm

How crazy is that. Of course, I still think I’m going to be making $173,000 any day now.

Anyways…my kids may have a little more than I as my father has already set up a college fund for them. I don’t have a college degree.

Comment Number:: 2
Written by:: Joey
Posted on:: May 3, 2007 at 2:29 am

Well these are all arbitrary numbers. These kids have nothing to base it on. Education is step one for any of these kids. My son knows that school does NOT end at high school, the way my parents taught me unfortunately. He knows there is at least 6 years of schooling once he gets his high school diploma or baccalaurÃ©at. With this plan already in the works, setting his lofty goals will be easier. Right now he doesn’t think about salary. He just knows what he wants to do and if he likes it, the money will come.

Comment Number:: 3
Written by:: CT
Posted on:: May 3, 2007 at 4:30 am

Why would a 14 year old know how much he or she would make 10+ years down the road? Yes $173,000 is a bad guess, but a lot of kids that age still genuinely beleive they will be a movie star or professional basketball player. The kids who think they are going to make $10 million a year are probably skewing the average (median would probably be more useful). I didn’t know how much I was going to make until I looked up the average salary for my future job.

Comment Number:: 4
Written by:: Silly kids, 6 figure incomes are not for newbies « Midspot
Posted on:: May 3, 2007 at 8:31 am

[...] May 3rd, 2007 · No Comments Teenagers today think that they are going to make quite a bit of money. The average teenager believes that they will be earning an salary of $145,000 a year. Boys believe that they will be earning a salary of $173,000 per year while girls believe they will be earning $114,000 per year. This despite the fact that the average annual salary for a worker in the US is about $40,000 today. Full Link [...]

Comment Number:: 5
Written by:: dan
Posted on:: May 3, 2007 at 8:52 pm

There are a lot of teenagers who are going to to a rude awakening in a few years. I’d bet that part of this is due to how easy it is for them to get money from their parents.