For the last several months, corporate executives have been loudly lamenting the rising cost of doing business due to supply-chain disruptions and labor shortages.

Indeed, inflation at levels not seen since the early 1990’s has shown itself to be both larger and more persistent than almost anyone is comfortable with.

Roughly four out of five companies surveyed by the Richmond Federal Reserve reported hiking up prices for consumers to cover “at least some” of the input costs they were experiencing.

But those same execs have been a bit more discreet — apart from their quarterly earnings calls — about celebrating the record profit margins they’ve been able to achieve by not only passing costs on to customers, but by charging even more.

More than half of the companies surveyed by the small business services reviews website Digital.com reported raising prices beyond what was required to offset rising input costs.

“In other words, businesses are inflating already inflated prices in order to turn a bigger profit amid people’s fears over uncertain times,” the sites small business expert, Dennis Consorte, said in a statement.

Additionally, large firms were more likely to engage in this practice than small businesses, the survey found…read more.