When you buy a car in the U.S., the seller hands over the car and the buyer hands over the money. The seller also hands over the title, which is physical proof of ownership, which you also need to register and insure the vehicle. The title document isn’t just a sheet of regular old paper, either; instead, it’s specially made with various security features to prevent counterfeiting
the pandemic caused a downturn in people buying cars, at least initially. As a result, paper companies that produced title paper switched to making things like cardboard when we were all ordering breadmakers, air purifiers, and copious amounts of booze online. This wouldn't be a problem if there were more than two big companies making title paper... but that is the case. The industry has been seriously consolidated over the past several years.
The result is that there simply isn't enough of the so-called "security paper" to go around
paper supplies should be back to normal later this summer