Once inflation is taken into account, the average worker’s pay will fall by around £50 a month this year, with the hike to cost a typical employee around £200 more in taxes
Image: Ute Grabowsky/Photothek/Getty Images)
The Chancellor is facing fresh calls to suspend a planned National Insurance tax hike from April as households prepare for the ‘worst pay squeeze in 200 years’.
It comes weeks after the Prime Minister and Rishi Sunak confirmed it will go ahead to plug a social care black hole – despite an escalating cost of living crisis.
Almost three-quarters of companies questioned in a report by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said they will up prices in response to rising living costs, including energy bills and the NI increase coming into effect in April.
A separate survey found that fewer than one in three workers expect their wages to keep pace with rising prices, in what the TUC described as “the worst pay squeeze in 200 years”.
The BCC called on the Chancellor to delay the introduction of the £12billion National Insurance rise to help households stay afloat.
The NI hike – split evenly between employees and employers – is being phased into plug a health and social care deficit within the NHS. In 2023, it will be renamed as a Health and Social Care Levy.
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Under it, the average worker will…
