Reality check

Paul Barton ( Letters, 1 July ) asks us not to “perpetuate the myth of feather-bedded public servants”. Working for the government, his pay rises have ranged from 0 to 3 per cent in the past three years, while his wife hasn’t had a pay rise in four years. I don’t think public servants are feather-bedded. But I also don’t think Barton fully appreciates the pain the private sector is going through.My self-employed earnings have dropped by 43 per cent. My partner has been asked to take a 15 per cent pay cut and work an extra half day a week. A contractor colleague is accepting work at a fraction of what his daily rate used to be; a friend of his has lost his job and house and is sleeping on the contractor’s floor. Another colleague is losing the job he has held for 31 years and will have to – at the age of 59 – go back to living with his mother. This is the kind of pain the private sector is experiencing – not just a smaller-than-usual pay rise.