American businesses are getting more pessimistic about inflation, and they’ve been getting more pessimistic for three months running. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Business Inflation Expectations survey for April 2026 shows firms anticipating a 2.3% increase in unit costs over the next twelve months, a meaningful jump from the 1.9% expectation recorded just two months earlier in February.
For the Federal Reserve, which has spent the better part of two years trying to engineer a soft landing, this is the kind of data that keeps rate cuts firmly off the table. For crypto markets already nursing wounds from a prolonged risk-off environment, it’s another reason to buckle up.
The inflation picture is getting stickier
The BIE survey matters because it captures something CPI data alone cannot: what the people actually running businesses expect to happen next. When firms start pricing in higher costs, those expectations have a nasty habit of becoming self-fulfilling. Companies raise prices preemptively, suppliers follow suit, and the whole cycle feeds on itself.
The broader inflation data backs up the pessimism. The Consumer Price Index for April 2026 came in at 3.8% year-over-year, a number that landed well above the Fed’s 2% target and sent a clear signal that the disinflation trend from late 2024 has reversed course.
