A Livable Wage

It's one of the most basic principles on which our country is built -- if you work hard, you should be able to earn enough money to provide for your family. But Houston janitors do work hard, and for their efforts they are paid just $424 per month on average. Measured conservatively, an average Houston family with two parents and two children needs to earn $2,691 per month just to take care of their basic needs:

Note: Totals do not include the cost of health care.
Source: Center for Public Policy Priorities, Austin, TX

Houston has a reputation as one of the United States' most affordable large cities, and deservedly so. It's cheaper to buy a house here, for example, and certain types of taxes are lower than in other major cities. But on just $5.30 an hour, none of that makes it any easier to pay the electric bill, or buy the groceries, or pay the rent (see table above). Any unplanned expense -- a doctor's bill, for example -- means going without some other basic necessity. Even the smallest comforts -- a meal at a restaurant, a few dollars in a savings account -- are unthinkable.

Video: One Worker's Story

Flora Aguilar was one of the first janitors who became active in efforts to improve her life and the lives of her co-workers. This short video tells how her life has already started to change as a result of the campaign. Watch the video in Real Player format.

Learn more:

• Is there a better way?

I have been a janitor for seven years. For my work, I am paid a wage of $5.25 an hour. It is misery.

My pay amounts to only $366 a month. I do not have enough money to pay for child care for my two youngest children, I do not have enough to pay for a ride on the bus, and I do not even have enough money to pay for food. My husband Carlos has a job in construction, but when it rains, he can't get work, and sometimes we cannot even pay the rent for the one-bedroom apartment with our two young children. We are forced to borrow money from our family.  It is an indignity.

I want a union because I want to have the power to make our company pay janitors what they should -- a wage with dignity that allows us to support our families.

Ericilia Sandoval

Affordable to All?

$5,512 What a janitor is paid per year for working four hours per night at $5.30 per hour.

$19,350 per year The official federal poverty line for a four-person household. Most people think that this number is far less than it actually takes for a family to live. In fact, even many federal programs -- such as the school lunch program -- define a low-income family as one that earns less than 185% of the federal poverty line.

29.4% The percentage of children under 18 in the City of Houston who live in poverty. Even more dramatically, 31.8% of children under five in the City of Houston live in poverty.

One-Third The proportion of Houston households that earn less than $25,000 per year.