Under what circumstances does the formalization of informal jobs lead to pro-worker outcomes, and when might formalization intensify workers’ exploitation or deprive them of work altogether? Drawing on 24 months of ethnographic field research, this presentation analyzes two ambitious efforts to integrate informal waste pickers into formal waste management. This research finds that formalization policies in Bogotá, Colombia elevated the incomes, conditions, and voice of thousands of waste pickers, whereas parallel efforts in the seemingly more favorable context of São Paulo, Brazil did not. Ultimately, these differential outcomes hinged on waste pickers’ levels of power to shape policy design and implementation.