An estimated 200,000 Americans are selling their blood plasma every single day as the cost of living crisis forces middle-class workers to monetize their own bodies just to cover basics like toilet paper and pet food.

The plasma-selling industry has exploded into a multibillion-dollar machine, with Americans making an estimated $4.7 billion last year from selling about 62.5 million liters of plasma—a more than 30 percent increase since 2022. There are now more plasma centers in the U.S. than Costco stores, with new locations popping up in suburban strip malls and college towns.

“I’m angry that I’m working this much, that I’m educated, that I’m articulate, that I have marketable skills, and that I’m reduced to selling my plasma,” said Jill Chamberlain from Phoenix, Arizona. After being laid off from a finance job in 2024, she went from making $87,000 a year to $16.11 an hour.

“I was ashamed at first, but now I’m angry. This is not how things are supposed to be.”

Ian Pleasant, 43, from Pennsylvania, showed up at a plasma center needing extra money for toilet paper and pet food. He left with $65 on a prepaid debit card. In suburban Minneapolis, Michelle Eagan drives 35 minutes twice a week to sell plasma just to cover her son’s $700-a-month preschool tuition—despite her husband earning $90,000 a year.

“We always heard the middle class was disappearing,” Chamberlain said. “But really, really quickly, the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are sinking.”

The U.S. now supplies 70 percent of the world’s plasma, shipping $6.2 billion worth overseas in 2024. Lax regulations allow people to donate twice weekly, and the industry is dominated by just a handful of biopharmaceutical companies.

“It’s like a drug dealer—once they have you in there, they have to keep you coming back,” Eagan said.

In Fresno, California, Erin Ragnetti started selling plasma to cover debt and bills. “Because the economy is what it is right now, everything’s just so much more expensive,” she said. “I realized, if we’re going to make ends meet, I’ve got to find a way to make more money.”

There’s little research on the long-term health effects of regular plasma donation, though some studies show decreases in certain proteins and antibodies. The industry has ballooned anyway, with more than 1,200 centers now operating nationwide and the donor pool increasingly made up of people who never imagined they’d be selling parts of themselves to survive.