US Businesses Struggle With Rising Costs and Uncertainty

American businesses are facing a difficult operating environment as higher energy costs, shipping disruptions, volatile commodity prices, and cautious consumers put pressure on already-thin margins. The situation has led some business owners to describe the current period as more stressful than the Covid-era supply chain crisis. The latest concerns highlight how US business crisis 2026 is being driven not by one disruption alone, but by several overlapping pressures that make planning increasingly difficult.

A Different Kind of Crisis

The comparison with Covid is striking because the problems facing businesses today are different from the shortages and shutdowns experienced during the pandemic.

During 2020 and the years that followed, businesses struggled with closed factories, congested ports, labor shortages, and major delays in receiving products. Containers were stranded and retailers struggled to keep basic goods on shelves.

The current environment is more unpredictable. Supply chains continue to function, but costs and delivery conditions can change rapidly. Businesses may receive products, but at significantly higher prices or with longer and less predictable shipping schedules.

According to CNN's reporting, an Institute for Supply Management survey included a business respondent who described the current supply chain environment as a crisis that was even more complicated than the period during and after Covid. Other business executives interviewed for the report similarly emphasized uncertainty rather than a complete breakdown of supply.

Energy Costs Are Adding More Pressure

Energy has become one of the biggest concerns for companies that depend on transportation, manufacturing, logistics, and physical distribution.

US consumer energy prices increased 16.3% over the 12 months ending in August 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gasoline prices were up 27.4% over the same period, while fuel oil increased 52%.

Those increases do not affect consumers alone. Businesses that transport products, operate factories, heat buildings, or rely on fuel-intensive equipment can face higher operating expenses.

The producer side of the economy has also experienced significant pressure. The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.4% in August, while final-demand goods rose 1.1%. Diesel fuel prices jumped 24.1% during the month and accounted for more than one-third of the increase in final-demand goods.

For smaller businesses, sudden increases in fuel and transportation costs can be especially difficult to absorb.

Small Businesses Have Less Room to Absorb Higher Costs

Large corporations can sometimes negotiate with suppliers, restructure logistics networks, or absorb temporary increases in operating expenses. Smaller businesses often have fewer options.

CNN reported on the experience of Sean Brownlee, CEO of Ravenox, a US manufacturer of rope, cord, and leash products. Brownlee said businesses can absorb additional costs for a period, but eventually the pressure becomes acute.

This creates a difficult choice.

A company can increase prices and risk losing customers, or keep prices lower and accept thinner margins. Neither option is particularly attractive when consumers are already concerned about their own budgets.

For many small businesses, the challenge is therefore not simply whether costs are rising. It is whether customers will accept the prices necessary to keep the business operating.

Coffee Businesses Are Feeling the Impact

Coffee provides a clear example of how multiple disruptions can reach an individual business.

Jeff Vojta, CEO of Dilworth Coffee in Raleigh, North Carolina, has faced a combination of poor coffee harvest conditions, tariffs, shipping problems, fertilizer costs, and broader geopolitical disruptions.

The company traditionally planned coffee sourcing 12 to 24 months ahead. According to CNN, the uncertainty has pushed the business toward shorter planning horizons of roughly three to six months.

That change illustrates one of the less visible consequences of supply chain instability.

Even when a company can find products, it becomes harder to predict what those products will cost months from now. Businesses then have to spend more time researching suppliers, modeling prices, and determining how much inventory they can afford to hold.

Inflation Is Still Affecting the Business Environment

The latest inflation data shows why companies remain cautious.

The US Consumer Price Index increased 0.4% in August 2026 after rising 0.1% in July. Prices were 3.4% higher than a year earlier. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3% in August and 2.4% over the previous 12 months.

The numbers do not mean every business is experiencing the same cost increases. However, they demonstrate that inflationary pressure remains present even after the extreme price increases of the early 2020s.

For businesses, the problem becomes more complicated when higher input costs arrive alongside customers who are increasingly sensitive to prices.

A restaurant, retailer, manufacturer, or distributor cannot automatically pass every additional dollar of expense to customers.

Shipping Disruptions Make Planning Harder

Global logistics is another major source of uncertainty.

Companies depend on predictable transportation schedules to manage inventory. When ships are rerouted or ports experience disruptions, delivery times can become difficult to estimate.

CNN reported that shipping companies have faced additional pressure from disruptions around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, while weather-related events have also caused delays. The resulting rerouting has reduced available global shipping capacity, according to Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen.

Weather adds another layer of uncertainty because businesses cannot easily predict when a major storm or typhoon will interfere with an important transportation route.

This means supply chain managers are increasingly forced to plan around multiple scenarios rather than relying on one expected delivery schedule.

Customers Are Part of the Problem Too

Higher costs would be easier for businesses to handle if consumers were willing to absorb unlimited price increases.

But households have their own financial pressures.

When groceries, transportation, housing, services, and other necessities become more expensive, consumers may reduce spending on discretionary products. That can affect small businesses that rely on regular customer demand.

The August CPI report showed food prices were up 2.7% from a year earlier, while food away from home increased 3.4%.

This creates a difficult cycle for businesses. Higher costs require higher prices, but higher prices can reduce demand.

Uncertainty May Be More Damaging Than High Costs

One of the most important themes in the current environment is uncertainty.

Businesses can often adapt to a predictable increase in costs. If transportation costs rise by a known amount and remain stable, companies can adjust pricing, contracts, and inventory.

Volatility is much harder.

If diesel prices rise sharply one month, fall the next, and then increase again, companies have difficulty determining what prices to charge customers or how much inventory to purchase.

The same problem applies to commodities, shipping, and international sourcing.

For business owners, uncertainty makes long-term planning increasingly difficult. CNN's interviews with business executives suggest that this unpredictability is a major reason some owners view the current environment as more stressful than the Covid period.

What Businesses Can Do

There is no single solution for companies facing this combination of pressures, but businesses can reduce some risks through careful planning.

Several approaches can help:

• Review supplier networks: Multiple suppliers can reduce dependence on a single source.
• Monitor transportation costs: Fuel and shipping prices can have a significant effect on margins.
• Recalculate pricing regularly: Businesses may need to update prices as input costs change.
• Control inventory carefully: Holding too much inventory can tie up cash, while holding too little can create shortages.
• Protect cash flow: Liquidity becomes particularly important when costs and sales fluctuate.
• Communicate with customers: Clear explanations can make necessary price adjustments easier to understand.

These measures cannot eliminate external disruptions, but they can give businesses more flexibility when conditions change.

A Challenging Road Ahead

The current US business cost pressures are unlikely to disappear simply because one source of disruption improves.

Even if energy prices eventually decline, businesses could still face shipping problems, weather disruptions, commodity volatility, labor expenses, and cautious consumer spending.

That is why the current situation is more complicated than a simple inflation story.

Businesses are dealing with a combination of higher costs and uncertainty about what those costs will look like several months from now. For companies with limited cash reserves, that uncertainty can be just as important as the headline price increases themselves.

Final Thoughts

American business owners are navigating an unusually complicated economic environment in 2026. Rising energy prices, expensive transportation, supply chain disruptions, inflation, and weaker pricing flexibility are creating pressure across multiple industries.

The comparison with Covid should be understood as a description of how some business leaders feel about the current uncertainty, rather than as a formal measurement that today's crisis is objectively larger than the pandemic. The two periods have different causes and economic characteristics.

What is clear is that many companies are being forced to plan more cautiously. For small businesses in particular, maintaining cash flow, controlling costs, managing suppliers, and understanding customer demand may become increasingly important as the economic environment remains unpredictable.