Teacher Donates Plasma Twice A Week To Make Ends Meet As Inflation Lowers Already Low Salary

It’s no secret that teachers get low pay, especially for all that they do.

But now a new enemy, inflation, is placing them under considerable strain, with some teachers resorting to donating plasma weekly to get by.

The Washington Post reports:

“Tuesdays she asked for the needle in her left arm, and one afternoon in late April, Christina Seal, 41, arrived at the clinic after work. The parking lot was almost full, as usual.

She had been giving plasma for nearly six months, and she had a routine locked in place. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two Sam’s Club protein shakes and an iron supplement a day to keep herself serviceable. Afterward, vitamin E oil on her skin to prevent needle scars. The routine had helped tame into normalcy what at first had felt so bizarre. ‘I never thought I would be in a position where I would have to sell my plasma to feed my children,’ she would say later.

This was where inflation had driven Seal. A month earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had announced that prices had risen 8.5 percent over the past year, the largest annual jump since December 1981. Fuel, food and housing costs are higher than they have been in years. The financial strain has forced millions of households to collide against new limits and harder choices. Inflation has bent a million routines into new shapes.

For Seal, it has meant that her 18-year teaching career alone can no longer provide for her two children, ages 15 and 12. It has meant feeding them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and explaining that she cannot afford the gas to drive both her son to boxing lessons and her daughter to volleyball. It has meant realizing there are few options for help.

‘I’ve applied for every government program that I can think of,” she said. ‘I don’t qualify for food stamps, I don’t qualify for any programs. For middle-class people like me, there are no programs.’

Then, last fall, she found a possible solution. By donating plasma — the liquid element in human blood containing vital antibodies and proteins — twice a week each week, Seal could earn between $400 to $500 per month.

That Tuesday at the plasma clinic, the waiting room was also nearly full.”

For the rest of the story, visit The Washington Post here.