Aaron Seyedian was inspired by campaigns to raise the minimum wage so in 2017, he launched a cleaning company that pays more than $20 per hour. The former World Bank consultant also worked as a cleaner for a few months after starting Well-Paid Maids in the Washington, D.C., area.
Seyedian, 36, recommends cleaning on the way out of a room and starting from high to low — shelves and mirrors then the floor. He also advises being ready for furry surprises. “You never know where a cat is hiding in someone’s house. Always assume a furry blur may eject itself from under a bed once you turn the vacuum cleaner on,” he said.
It’s been nearly a month since Well-Paid Maids launched in Chicago — the company’s first Midwest expansion beyond the Washington, D.C., area and New York — and business is strong.
The company pays cleaners $26 an hour in Illinois, as well as benefits, compared to the national median wage of $16.08 an hour for housekeepers in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“I’m bringing the business to markets that have high incomes and progressive political leanings, so Chicago fits with that nicely,” Seyedian said. Lower housing costs in Chicago compared to other cities means well-off residents have relatively high discretionary income, he said.
“Like D.C. — our first market — Chicago is a tale of two cities with extreme inequality. And I think that in that kind of environment, well-meaning people are looking for ways to lessen the divide between the haves and have-nots,” Seyedian said.
In the Chicago area, Well-Paid Maids has booked 175 cleanings from Sept. 16 to Oct. 10, bringing in more than $49,000 in revenue. It took about nine months to reach that amount when the company launched in the Washington area and nearly two years after it started in New York in 2022.
“Chicago has really embraced us immediately,” Seyedian said.
Customers are throughout the city in neighborhoods such as Hyde Park, Lake View, Edgewater and Ukrainian Village.
Cleaning rates in the Chicago area range from $219 for three hours for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom home to $319 for five hours or $499 for eight hours to clean an office building.
‘Employee-centered service’
Employee Nate Loudermilk, 23, moved to Chicago from the Washington, D.C., area to help launch the service. He’s recruiting two new employees who are expected to start this month. Well-Paid Maids wants a staff of five cleaners in Chicago by the end of December and about 20 over the next two years.
“I really want to offer this living wage model to as many people as possible,” Loudermilk said. “I feel really strongly about this, as I grew up with a single mother in poverty and I can see how a living wage job could have given me a better childhood.”
In Chicago, Loudermilk said he’s cleaned for clients ranging from “single young professionals to a family of eight plus their animals; it’s really just anybody who wants to make a positive change in their community.”
“People are wanting to use an employee-centered service in an industry that is normally treated pretty poorly,” he said.
“Now that I am making more money, I am also putting more money back into the economy,” Loudermilk said. “And I have a safety net, so the next time something unexpected comes up, I am not choosing between food and my rent payment. I am much happier knowing that I can pay my bills on time and that has honestly made the biggest difference in my life.”
Nate Loudermilk at a client’s home in Hyde Park.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
More pay and extra benefits
Seyedian launched Well-Paid Maids with $7,000 from a buyout at his previous consulting firm. His company has been profitable every year since it launched, except in 2020 due to the pandemic, he said. Most of its growth has been financed with retained earnings. As the company has gotten bigger, it’s also taken out traditional bank loans.
Well-Paid Maids has about 40 employees, mostly in the Washington area, who clean homes as well as offices, event venues and other spaces. As of October, it has served around 7,500 customers in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and New York.
Before coming up with the idea of Well-Paid Maids, Seyedian tried to work for labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union but wasn’t hired.
“I started thinking about how I could contribute without permission and thought that starting an explicitly living-wage company would be a great way,” he said. “I thought that our story and success as a living-wage business could be a useful rejoinder to the traditional business lobbyists.”
Well-Paid Maids’ cleaners are W-2 employees, with 20 days of paid time off each year and four paid holidays. By comparison, Chicago’s paid leave ordinance, which took effect July 1, mandates employers to give workers 10 paid days off annually.
Well-Paid Maids benefits also include health, dental and vision insurance with the company paying 80% of premiums for employees and dependents.
The company also offers short-term disability insurance to employees because Illinois doesn’t have a paid family and medical leave program. The 1993 federal Family Medical Leave Act guarantees only unpaid leave for qualified workers.
“This is disappointing for us because I know from experience that public paid family and medical leave insurance is much cheaper — about one-third the cost — than private short-term disability,” Seyedian said.
In Maryland, organizations including Well-Paid Maids advocated for paid family and medical leave. The company testified in the Legislature, spoke at events and wrote letters to the editor of various newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun. In 2022, Maryland passed a law to create paid family and medical leave. After a delay, contributions from employers and employees will start in 2025 and covered employees will begin receiving benefits in 2026.
Matthew Notowidigdo, economics professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said a model like Well-Paid Maids can be sustainable.
“I’ve seen evidence that the pandemic has permanently shifted the economy towards greater competition for low-wage workers. I expect more and more companies to move in this direction in the future, largely out of economic necessity,” he said.
Loudermilk started at Well-Paid Maids in April 2023. His starting wage was $23 an hour, and he could afford health insurance for the first time. “I’ve never made as much money as I do here,” said Loudermilk, who has been working since high school.
But better pay isn’t the only benefit. “I really appreciate the fact that all of our managers had to start off as cleaners, so it gives them the wisdom to help me in my day-to-day operation as a cleaner.”
“I tell my clients that I love Fridays, but I don’t hate Mondays. Every day that I can work for a living wage is a blessing to me, and I am very grateful to the clients who have made that possible. I hope I never have to work for another company.”