QuickTake:

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, heard from members of Lane County’s business community about their challenges. Amid a volatile economy, small-business owners say they want a more predictable market for goods and services. 

Businesses are squeezed from all sides. 

Restaurants face rising grocery prices, increasing health insurance premiums and surcharges that get added to deliveries. Gasoline prices go up. Meanwhile, employees want raises to keep up with inflation. 

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley heard accounts and frustrations about the economic uncertainty, Friday, June 5, in Eugene. Merkley, D-Oregon, convened a gathering of eight workers and members of Lane County’s business community in a roundtable at Café Soriah, an upscale Mediterranean restaurant in downtown Eugene. 

Seated at tables in the restaurant, the group shared stories about the squeeze. For Ibrahim Hamid, owner of Café Soriah, salmon has increased from $10 to $17 per pound, part of a trend of higher food prices during the last couple of years. A $7 surcharge has been added to some deliveries to cover rising fuel costs. In Eugene and Springfield, unleaded regular fuel costs an average of $5.11 a gallon, up from $3.91 a year ago, according to Friday figures from the motor club AAA. 

And, for businesses, it’s too risky to increase prices.  Already at Café Soriah, which opened in 1993, some customers are splitting entrees.  

“The profit margin is very thin, paper-thin, and we’re slicing it in half,” Hamid told the group. “I’m very petrified about passing the cost to the end user, being the customer, especially with other restaurants closing right now.”

Unlike the Great Recession, when the housing bubble burst, multiple factors are at play in the economy of 2026. President Donald Trump’s war in Iran led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, choking off access to much of the world’s oil supply. Overall inflation is going up. From country to country, Trump’s tariffs have created uncertainty that unevenly impacts industries. 

“A big factor would be to stop the chaotic tariffs, because that really throws a wrench into all of the businesses,” Merkley told reporters after the event. “Not only do they pay more because of the tariffs, but they can’t plan. … So, across Oregon, folks keep telling me, business keeps saying, ‘Stop the chaos and tariffs.’”

Besides Merkley and Hamid, other people joined the roundtable: Brittany Quick-Warner, president and CEO of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce; Vonnie Mikkelson, president and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce; Chandra Ferrell, a certified nursing assistant at Samaritan Albany General Hospital;  Matthew Vega, a cook at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center RiverBend; Ben Tilley Jr., owner of Crossroads Farm; and Melissa Brown, owner of The Kiva Grocery in Eugene. 

Businesses like Brown’s grocery store also have to deal with cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which gives food benefits to people with low and moderate incomes. 

“Every day, it’s like, what am I going to have to navigate here,” Brown said. “And typically also what we see in businesses, when a fuel surcharge is added, it doesn’t go away just because gas goes down, it just becomes the sort of new normal.”

Quick-Warner, with the Eugene chamber, said the unpredictability of prices means that small businesses can’t increase wages.

“Small businesses can’t adjust their prices to meet the fluctuations in the market right now – enough to have the predictability to increase wages for their staff,” Quick-Warner said, adding that once wages are increased, they’re set, even as other costs continue to rise. 

Overall, Quick-Warner said, businesses want to know what their costs will be so they can plan accordingly.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.