Catherine Ann Edwards

I guess maybe the way that I was, what I was trying to convey was that there are bad things happening in our economy that are relatively contained to a small amount of people.

The unemployment rate right now is low, but the unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed six months or longer is rising.

It's higher now than it was for many recessions in our history.

This is the first time it's ever risen outside of a recession.

So it's a localized pain that the economy hasn't gotten bad enough for enough people for a recession to be declared.

But the point of the piece was to really point out whether you need the title of recession for that pain to matter more.

And unfortunately, I think we do.

Thank you for having me.

Giant machines are spread across a gray manufacturing floor here at Texas Injection Molding in southeast Houston, where plastic is heated and molded into all sorts of random widgets.

Jeff Applegate founded the company.

On the floor today, the machines are making things like medical-grade containers for syringes and bait buckets for exterminators.

Applegate walks me through.

how a red plastic sign is made.

Next, we walk into a room filled with giant containers of different types of the plastic pellets he uses.

Some are made from crude oil, some from natural gas.

I stick my hand in and grab a fist of polyethylene beads.

Plastics like this are in tighter supply around the world and are getting more and more expensive.

Plastics make up roughly half of his input costs.

He says they use about 8 million pounds of it each year.

Around the world, commodity-grade plastic prices are up, says Al Greenwood, who covers plastics and petrochemicals for ICIS.