[Houshalter]

A much better, but politically impossible, solution is basic income. Minimum wage is basically a tax on companies that employ low skill workers to those workers.

There are several problems with this. Why tax only companies that hire lots of workers, regardless of how profitable they are? It punishes those businesses and discourages hiring low skill workers. It also only benefits only those workers and not the unemployed or poor in general.

Basic income taxes all businesses fairly, spreads the benefits fairly, and doesn't create bad incentives. But unfortunately it will always be unpopular on both the left and right. To the right it's socialism. And the left will complain about <Big Business> that isn't paying their employees "fairly" and offloading the cost to the government.