(Photo/Steven Depolo via Flickr)
As the U.S. economy fails to rebound from its pre-Great Recession status, Americans are scrambling not only to make ends meet, but also to pay back debt — and they’re turning to nontraditional means to make that happen.
For women, the sale of eggs, hair and breast milk is becoming more commonplace. According to Bloomberg News, Google search queries relating to selling kidneys, hair and eggs have consistently been among the top since 2011.
“The fact that people even explore it indicates that there are still a lot of people worried about their financial outlook,” ConvergEx Group chief market strategist Nicholas Colas told Bloomberg. “This is very much unlike every other recovery that we’ve had. It’s going to be a slow-grinding, very frustrating recovery.”
According to a Pew Research Survey, 54 percent of Americans say their household incomes have hardly recovered at all from the pre-Great Recession era. On top of that, 63 percent indicate the nation’s economic system is “no more secure today” than it was before 2008.
When it comes to the nation’s most economically vulnerable, the lack of recovery is even more dire. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed by Pew indicate that nothing is being done to help poor people, while 71 percent indicating government policies have failed to assist the middle class.
This is the reality facing those who are turning to the sale of body parts to make ends meet. Technically, there’s nothing illegal about selling hair and breast milk — and women’s sale of eggs is a service offered through fertility clinics.
According to Shady Grove Fertility Center, based in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, applicants for egg sales have risen 13 percent since 2012.
The company, Egg Donation, Inc., offers its services through its website, eggdonor.com. Advertised as a company that unties aspiring egg donors and aspiring mothers, it offers donors compensation ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. It also presents the opportunity as one that can be repeated, with “increased compensation for subsequent cycles.”
The company also offers to cover other expenses related to expenses for travel to clinic locations, including airline tickets, hotel and ground transportation for the donor and one companion.
For those struggling to pay back debt, and for those who have been waiting to recover since the 2008 collapse, $10,000 compensation is one option that provides a means to do so.