How are businesses feeling about the economy? Depends on their size

How Buffalo Niagara businesses feel about the economy largely depends on their size.

Ted Janicki

Ted Janicki, Bank of America’s Buffalo market president.

With a lot of attention on tariffs, access to capital and labor availability, not all businesses feel the effects of those issues the same way, said Ted Janicki, Bank of America’s Buffalo market president.

Among Bank of America’s local small business clients – those with revenues of up to $5 million – “there is still an incredible amount of optimism within that group,” Janicki said Thursday, at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s economic development summit. “Access to capital is easier for that group to have, and a loan size of $150,000 has a big impact on that smaller business.”

For the bank’s local midsize business banking clients – with revenues of $10 million to $100 million – “the optimism is not there,” Janicki said. “They are more impacted by the tariffs, they are more impacted by the uncertainty.

“They are more impacted by the labor market crunch, and there is a lot of hesitation on them moving forward with any sort of large injections of capital into their business,” he said. “They are more impacted by the tariffs, they are more impacted by the uncertainty.”

The businesses in that category “want to grow, but they’re not considering doing that as they move into 2026,” opting for more of a wait-and-see approach, Janicki said.

“I think that’s very important, because that subsegment of businesses employ and have the largest impact on our local economy here,” he said. “So, if there’s hesitation and there’s worry within that subsegment, that’s going to lead into the overall economic strength and mindset of our local business community.”

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Small businesses tend to have a more optimistic view of the economy than large and midsize ones, a Bank of America executive said.

Janicki said Bank of America’s local commercial banking clients, with revenues of up to $2 billion or even higher, are “a little bit more optimistic, but they are much more driven by what the economic policies are by the state and also the federal government.”

The uncertainty around issues like tariffs “is causing a lot of hesitation with how, when and where, and the timing of growth that we see in those businesses,” he said.

Put it all together, Janicki said, and “there’s no real easy answer around what 2026 is going to look like. I think there’s a lot of moving parts.”

Stephen McAllister, vice president of the Eastern region for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said tariffs remain a key issue for businesses.

Stephen McAllister

Stephen McAllister, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Eastern region.

“The unpredictability of this tariff plan is hurting just as much as the tariffs are,” said McAllister, who is based in Rhode Island.

The chamber has urged the Trump administration to automatically exclude small business importers from all new tariffs.

”We understand that a lot of small businesses, they don’t have the capacity or the margins to take on these huge swings,” McAllister said. “They just do not have it, and it’s going to cost jobs, and it’s going to cause businesses to go out of business.”

The chamber has also called for excluding from tariffs products that either can’t be made in the United States or can’t easily be sourced domestically. And the business group has asked the Trump administration to create a process for businesses to quickly obtain exclusions from tariffs that, as applied, pose significant risks to U.S. employment.

So far, he said, the Trump administration has not responded to the chamber’s recommendations.

McAllister said companies have used different pricing and purchasing strategies in response to the tariffs.

“A lot of people have just kind of tried to time the market,” he said. “A lot of people have just absorbed [the higher costs]. A lot of them, they kind of bought up a lot [of inventory] early on, and they had, maybe had a six-month supply, eight-months supply. Those are going to start running out now.”Matt Glynn

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