Thousands of women across the country are turning their bodies into ATMs, selling their hair, eggs and even their breast milk to make ends meet as the economic recovery fails to bring wages and job opportunities back to pre-recession levels.
Many of the women who are auctioning off pieces of themselves are middle-class mothers who are struggling to maintain the same standard of living for their children five years after the biggest economic crash since the Great Depression.
Online market places have sprung up, making it easy for women to make up to $1,500 selling their locks and $5 an ounce for breast milk.
Online marketplaces like Only the Breast have sprung up to allow women to sell their breast milk for up to $5 an ounce
The site buyandsellhair.com features hundreds of women, and a few men, who want to sell their locks
Selling eggs, which is a much more complicated and intrusive process, can net up to $8,000 per donation.
Bloomberg reports that since 2011, the top Google auto-completion results for 'I want to sell my...' have included 'hair,' 'eggs' and 'kidney.'
Google's fill-in results reflect the most popular searches by Google users.
'The fact that people even explore it indicates that there are still a lot of people worried about their financial outlook,' Nicholas Colas, who tracks economic indicators for ConvergEx Group, 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.'
Selling kidneys is illegal in the United States, though evidence suggests that black market organ sales exist. A University of Chicago study suggested that kidneys could be worth more than $15,200 each, if sales were legalized.
Egg donation, which is much more complicated and requires several trips to donation clinics, can bring $8,000 per donation
April Hare, a 35-year-old mother of two who has been out of work for two years, resorted to selling 18 inches of her auburn hair to help support her family.
She told Bloomberg she cut off her long locks and posted them on the website buyandsellhair.com for $1,000.
She had several responses within hours.
Hare, who has a four-month-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, said she is also looking into selling her breast milk. A similar site, onlythebreast.com, allows mothers to list their milk for sale online. It can go for up to $5 an ounce.
'These are tough times. The rich are getting richer and everybody else is losing their jobs and their homes. It’s just terrible,' she said.
She previously worked as a sales manager before losing her job in 2011.
Bridie MacDonald, from the wealthy Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Michigan, cut off her red locks and posted them online for $1,500 after she lost her job last month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2462103/Women-forced-sell-hair-breast-milk-eggs-make-ends-meet-economic-recovery-fails-improve-wages.html#ixzz2hqMXz8sa
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