A huge influx of immigrants and now a potentially large move of welfare recipient into entry-level positions intensify competition for jobs, particularly lesser skilled ones.

企业主、劳工领袖和国会议员，甚至少数越来越直言不讳的企业和地方经济专家，对盛行几十年的经济运转理论和记录经济运转情况的统计数字提出质疑。

Decades-old theories about how the economy performs and the statistics used to track it are being challenged by business and labor leaders as well as by congressmen and even an increasingly vocal minority of corporate and regional economists.

这种争论非常重要，原因之一是：联邦储备委员会已经开始提高利率，以便减缓经济发展速度，并且预防通货膨胀重新出现。

One reason this debate is so important is that the Federal Reserve Board has started raising interest rates to slow the economy and, in a kind of pre-emptive strike, to stop inflation from re-emerging.