They are paying what the work is worth.
They are paying what THEY have decided the work is worth. The workers disagree with that decision, and the minimum wage is what happens when the workers WIN the argument.
The work is worth whatever both the employer agrees to pay and the employee agrees to work at. If the government steps in and forces a different number, they are forcing one party to subsidize the other beyond what the work is actually worth.
UBI doesn't solve all problems, but it does cover the same issue minimum wage is said to cover
Not by itself it doesn't. Basic Income in the
absence of a minimum wage is functionally equivalent to systems of poverty that already exist and have existed in the past. If you don't actually
have to pay your workers more than a few pennies for their work, then that's exactly what you'll pay them.
Only if they will agree to work at that rate. They are not forced by the employer to take the job.
The higher minimum wage actually accomplishes what TANF/SNAP/UBI cannot: it creates access to income high enough to eventually escape from poverty. UBI doesn't provide that, it only provides a level of income high enough to SURVIVE poverty, but doesn't gaurantee eventual liberation from it. A minimum wage does, since long-term employment also implies the accretion of work experience and skill and thus the value of the worker's labor -- and therefore his income -- will increase over time.
Neither UBI or minimum wage guarantees eventual liberation from it. Why are you equating minimum wage to long-term employment? Are unskilled minimum wage jobs not especially vulnerable to lay-off and automation?
Working a minimum wage job over a long term will mostly give people experience at working that minimum wage job. You are not guaranteed any transferable skills or any hope of advancement. It won't necessarily give them the education or other tools that they need to move up the ladder to higher paying and more rewarding work. And while they are occupied working for the minimum wage (or working generally - again minimum wage doesn't equate to long-term employment), they indeed won't have much free time to get better educated, even if education is highly subsidized or even free.
On UBI they need not work and provided we don't put a money barrier in their way to education, they can get that needed education and re-enter the workforce at a higher level.
In any economic that includes basic income but no minimum wage, the rate employers would most prefer to pay is always exactly "zero."
Yes, and the rate the employees would most prefer to receive is "infinite". The actual market rate is what the two agree on.
The problem with that is that the worker is more desperate to sell labour than the employer is to buy it, due to cost of living, so the employer can exploit this imbalance of bargaining power and get the worker to agree to very low wages. That changes with UBI. If UBI is sufficient to pay the cost of living for the employee, then the employer has to pay enough to entice the worker to work for him. In some dirty or unpleasant jobs, that rate could actually turn out to be quite high. It may even be high enough to eliminate or drastically modify some dangerous jobs and force employers to find safer alternatives, helping the health and safety of workers.
The real downside of UBI, and I am surprised nobody has brought this up yet, is on the negative impact it has on competition between companies. It means less successful but fun to work for companies will survive longer than they maybe should, as more successful companies pay higher taxes to support the UBI, including the UBI being paid to the workers of the less successful company (who may decide to work for very little because they enjoy the job so much). That would be an interesting aspect to explore, if we had any actual conservatives on here making the case.
Are you, by chance, unaware of the laundry list of social problems that continue to exist in poor communities DESPITE access to welfare assistance?
The same laundry list exists despite the existence of the current minimum wage as well. You say increase minimum wage, but that leaves out the unemployed as well as those being cheated illegally by employers. UBI would be an overhaul, increase, and broadening of what is now called welfare to make it universal. It would cover everybody regardless of who they work for or if they are working. Universal health care would do the same for health care. I see no reason why employers should be solely responsible for either of these things. Do you?
While living on mere UBI they could also go to school to get training for higher paying jobs.
They can already do that with welfare.
Why do you suppose that isn't already happening?
Some would say because they are lazy, but I would say because education is too expensive and welfare as you now have it isn't enough to make it doable. Education should be subsidized heavily, and ideally it should be free for all citizens, especially if it is vocational and likely to create a workforce benefiting all of society.