How much should a person who works 40 hours per week be paid if he or she is:?

The prevailing wage for their area and occupation.

A general rule of thumb to remember when it comes to valuing the job someone performs is: Compensation is usually determined by how long a person needs to train or learn the job at a level to perform the chosen task. In your list, a doctor and rocket scientist require many years of expert training and study. Whereas, the sweeper and burger dude can learn their jobs in a relatively small amount of time. The street performer, on the other hand, if a skilled a musician or dancer may also have trained long hours to become proficient at what they do. There is a huge difference between a Brain Surgeon and a Delivery Truck Driver -- Both are necessary of course, but the value to society should be proportional to compensation received. That said here's my answers: Doctor - $200; Sweeper - $10; Performer - $10; Scientist - $100; Burger dude - $8.

I'm working in £ so ignore if you were after a different currency

Doctor: roughly 40-60k a year (provided they're a good one) so around 1k a week

Sweeper: 15k-ish a year so around 300 per week (that feels like an overestimate)

Street performer: technically aren't employed and so do not get paid but I'd say within the region 100-500 through the public

Rocket scientist: 30-40k a year so around 500 per week

Burger flipper: about the same as the sweeper

The street performer is a small businessman by choice. It is up to him what he makes.

The rest should be paid enough to live on and anything above that is justified by the importance of their work. Would you rather no one sweep the streets? Pick up the garbage? Even what you consider "low value" jobs are actually quite important, or they wouldn't be paid activities. Nothing that anyone does 40 hours a week that contributes to society should be considered of so little value it isn't worth paying for.

A doctor should make nearly 100,000, a street sweepe rmight make 30,000, street performer maybe 10,000, rocket scientists about 50,000 to 80,000, a burger flipper about 16,000. This is yearly and I'm just estimating.

A person should be paid according to the free market law of supply and demand.

Making a "living wage" or a "decent wage" is pure socialism.

You are paid what you are worth. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you feel like you are being underpaid, you are free to seek another job that pays better.

If you can't find one, then you are getting paid what you are worth.

If you can't live on what you are worth, then you should have paid more attention in school and made yourself worth more.

If I was a liberals I would say burger flippers should be making $75k a year

COOKS should make at least twenty thousand a year. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BURGER FLIPPER!

Whatever the laws of supply and demand dictate.

Depends upon the quality of their work.

OR ----

they can be a CEO - and do a horrible job, and have their buddies on the board of directors give a BIG BONUS!!

YIPPEE!!!

lol

I don't care - as long as it meets a minimum standard that is realistically livable and sustainable.