Wild card here is the surge in undocumented immigrant labor.
Much of the "free market" only works when there is no source or sink of inputs. Unlimited supplies of anything, be it capital [inflation] or labor [falling wages] violate the basic assumptions.
If we like the free market, then the conditions for the free market must be maintained.
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).