[vsskanth]

I upvoted you because you bring up a popular myth.

So you are correct that they have to be paid market wage. But the details matter here. For the DOL, the "market wage" is the "prevailing wage". This is a function of the job classification (title), wage level, location and (most important) which wage survey they choose to use.

By now you can probably guess how a company that wants to underpay can use these levers - under classifying, moving them to a suburb with less employers for that job, using a different wage survey etc.