As costs rise, blood plasma centers are opening in middle-class neighborhoods

The United States is one of the relatively few countries that allow people to be paid for their blood plasma. It’s the provider of around 70% of the world’s plasma supply, said Kurtis Lee, an economics correspondent at The New York Times.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Lee about his reporting on plasma donation in the United States. He and The Times’ Robert Gebeloff recently found that increasingly, middle-class suburbanites are selling their plasma to get by.

“It’s kind of a shadow safety net in a lot of ways,” Lee said. “There are people very much looking to supplement their income in this economy. They’re driving for Uber, Lyft, but there’s also this other area, which is plasma donation.”

Click the audio player above to hear the interview.