As beautiful as seeing a true free market would be, it is just an ideal and in practice doesn't really work as it should. But then nothing really does, from stuff like democracy and communism to simple things like FDs and toothbrushes with weird angles.

It is too late in the game for free market wages to be in America. The "natural" minimum wage would have to be at least halved from the mandated one and prices would have to dis-inflate in order to maintain purchasing power which is NOT a good thing. Theoretically and practically, the only way for sustained dis-inflation would be a slow and gradual contraction - think the Great Depression stretched out over a long period of time.