My father started my allowance at age six – it was a nickel, at a time when you could buy a daily newspaper or a candy bar for 2-3 cents. It went pretty quickly to a quarter, since a nickel didn’t go as far as everyone seems to remember it did. This taught me the value of inflation.
I always had an allowance, not a big one, until I was old enough to work. I liked having money, so I always worked. I always budgeted, I always saved, I always had some for tzedekah.
The current boy’s own father did not believe in allowances. This boy was not good with money from the start, and his father feared that giving him an allowance would lead him to just another failure in his life, since he would always be running out of money, and blaming himself.
I take the opposite view, that the running out of money will teach him to stretch it a bit, and it is better to learn this skill now, at 16, with smaller amounts of money, than to learn it as an adult, with larger amounts of money. The allowance of a child is a salary, but in a sandbox. If he misspends it, he may feel bad, he may learn, but he will not starve or rack up large debts.