Business owners generally paid low wages in factories because A. government regulation lowered production costs. B. they wanted to maximize worker productivity. C. keeping wages low meant lower production costs. D. labor unions were focused on worker safety rather than pay.

Answer: Option C

Explanation: In simple words, production cost refers to the amount of total output that the organisation spend on the process of producing the commodity they are offering.

The wages of workers is a constituent of production cost. Higher production cost lead to lower profits. Therefore, the organisations always try to keep its production cost lower.

Hence from the above we can conclude that the correct option is C.