Businesses will have to absorb the costs of paying more national insurance or give out smaller pay rises, Rachel Reeves has acknowledged. Asked about the consequences of increasing national insurance contributions for employers by 1.2 percentage points to 15% from April 2025, the Chancellor told BBC Breakfast: “I said that it will have consequences. “It will mean that businesses will have to absorb some of this through profits and it is likely to mean that wage increases might be slightly less than they otherwise would have been. “But, overall, the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast that household incomes will increase during this Parliament. “That is a world away from the last Parliament, which was the worst Parliament ever for living standards.”