Based on a review of the labor history and the evolution of regulatory statutes related to wage theft in the United States, the research focused the analysis on three structural causes to wage theft: low profit margin, exploitable classes of workers, and the corresponding employment system set up. At the forefront of all dissolutions was found to be the inherent low profitability across firms that is currently resisted by the Race to the Bottom strategy abroad and undetected small cases of wage theft domestically. To operate for sustainable gains, manufacturers should consider alternative profit strategies to labor rights violations. Through interpretation and development of established methodologies, the research recommends improving supply chain efficiency, entrepreneuring for better profit models, and marketing in shaping customer preference for fair wages. Ultimately, the domestic industry must consider a new norm of operation in breaking the low marginal of gains from manual labor in garment productions. The thought experiment presented at the end evaluates the expansion of the design function to include the production process as a potential solution to the wage theft problem.