From the food you eat to the products you buy, surging inflation has crept into the daily lives — and budgets — of Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Perhaps there is no better way to see the inflation’s impact than to consider what Niko Semertsidis, the owner of longtime Old Brooklyn staple, Gus’s Family Restaurant, now has to pay for a case of fresh eggs. The compounding price increases and supply chain constraints have been difficult to navigate, Semertsidis said.
“[Inflation] hurts consumers. It hurts businesses. It generally becomes a problem for a lot of people, frankly,” Mateyo said. “ It’s very hard. They have to worry about higher wages to keep people employed because they want to keep the restaurant open. They have higher prices for materials and goods and so forth, but they also have higher wages. They don’t want to alienate their customers so they have to manage both sides of the equation.
Earlier this year, Semertsidis made the difficult decision to implement a minor price increase across the board. However, as the case in the restaurant industry, implementing any price increase comes with expenses: Menus have to be changed and re-printed, online listings and other in-store displays have to be altered, and marketing materials have to be updated.
Who could’ve predicted that printing money would have a negative effect on small businesses?!?