They wouldn't have to pay $75,000 a year. Just a competitive wage for the market. I don't believe the choices are $75,000 a year or illegal labor. Yes, we as consumers might absorb additional costs in goods and services, but only to the extent that the market would allow. It would also be partially offset by the increased tax base. Also, for every worker that moves off of government assistance to a paying job, the effect is compounded.
I agree with all you say and I have been a little on the pessimistic side. The trick is finding that magic number where you can get a good worker rather than just a warm body and those are getting harder to find.
Through the years our liberal policies and PC attitudes have developed a "you owe me" society that is growing rather than shrinking. We now have millions of illegals in the country and embedded in the economy. We have fifty plus years of welfare, subsidized housing and food stamps. That is what we have to deal with.
Each of us could start from scratch and solve this problem quite well by NOT doing most of the things that have been done for the last 50 years. That is not a choice. We are where we are and the problem in knotty.
We conservatives are dividing ourselves, with a little help from our friends, by dealing with shouldda, couldda, wouldda, and what ought to have been done and demanding impossible immediate solutions.