Congress could change USPS finances and avoid more service cuts that disproportionately hurt rural areas

Rural residents are more dependent on 
the USPS. (Photo by A. Land, Unsplash)

The U.S. Postal Service can't borrow any more money to cover ongoing deficits, and unless changes to its funding are made, USPS leadership has warned that the service will run out of money sometime in 2026. Elena Patel reports for Brookings.  "This fiscal crisis reflects a structural mismatch between what Congress requires the Postal Service to do and how it is financed."

When the USPS was created, its financial foundations included a monopoly on letter delivery tied to a universal service mandate; however, as the number of letters mailed in the U.S. steadily declined beginning in 2007, the universal service requirement remained in place. The lack of letter revenue essentially meant USPS could no longer afford to deliver to all 169 million addresses that Congress mandated it serve with affordable rates.

Once letter revenue tanked, the USPS still delivered to every address despite the financial toll. "The USPS nationwide delivery network ensures that access does not depend on geography or profitability," Patel explains.

Brookings graph, from USPS Form 10-K Operating Statistics, FY 2007–2025.

For rural communities, USPS mail carriers often go the "last mile" to complete a delivery. The mail is a backbone for small-town businesses, finances and even medical care. Patel writes, "Particularly in low-density and rural communities, the mail remains essential infrastructure. It delivers prescription medications, ballots, and online purchases, and it supports local small-business activity."

Patel suggests some USPS changes that Congress could enact, which are edited for brevity below.

• Restructure pension liability finances, "including shifting these costs to the Treasury, as is done for other federal agencies."
• Pay universal service costs: "The cost of the universal service obligation exceeded the value of the postal monopoly by roughly $2-$3 billion per year for the last several years. . . . Congress could fund that mandate explicitly through annual appropriations."
• Increase the USPS borrowing cap and allocate funds for infrastructure improvements. "Additional capital flexibility could ease short-term liquidity pressures and allow USPS to finance modernization over time rather than from current cash flows."

Congress can "realign the financing framework with the universal service mandate it has imposed," Patel adds. "Or it can allow liquidity constraints to narrow that mandate by default. In practice, that 'default' path would likely involve deferred payments, delayed investment, and increased pressure for service cuts that fall most heavily on the communities most reliant on the mail."

Washington Post refutes Trump claim that Postal Service loses money on every e-commerce package it delivers

On April 24, President Trump told reporters that the U.S. Postal Service "is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies. And every time they bring a package, they lose money on it."

That's not true, writes Glenn Kessler, editor of The Washington Post's Fact Checker column. Unlike most of the president's many inaccurate statements, it could matter, because "Trump is threatening to veto financial aid for the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service unless it hikes the price it charges for delivering packages — which he said should be quadrupled."

USPS is losing money overall, mostly because more people send emails than snail mail these days, and because Congress requires it to prepay pension and health benefits for its employees, Kessler writes. The service is also at a disadvantage because it can't charge extra postage for first-class mail sent to remote (and therefore more expensive to deliver) locations.

Package delivery has been an increasing share of USPS volume and revenue over the past three years. "Of course, revenue is not profit. And we do not know the details of the contracts between USPS and Internet retailers," Kessler reports. "But USPS says it has been raising prices." Amazon contracts with USPS instead of developing its own "last mile" delivery service, but USPS said in a 2019 report that Amazon and other big shippers are testing and implementing their own last-mile services.

The emergence of competitors is significant since, under a 2006 law, USPS is prohibited from losing money on competitive service deliveries. If USPS were losing money to Amazon or another carrier on package deliveries, it would essentially be required to raise its prices to cover costs. But its most recent revenue filing shows that first-class package service revenue was 148 percent of costs associated with such deliveries, while ground parcel post covered 189% of costs.

Kessler asked the Treasury Department for a clarification of Trump's remarks. "Essentially, Treasury’s answer is that USPS’s calculation methods are off-kilter and provide a misleading picture of profits and losses — even as it concedes that USPS is following the law," Kessler writes. He gives Trump four Pinocchios, the most that The Fact Checker hands out in a single case. The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, a fact to which Trump has alluded.

Opinion: Congress needs to act before the U.S. Postal Service goes 'bust' because of 'outdated constraints'

The USPS does 'what no other business would do.'
(Photo by Victória Kubiaki, Unsplash)

The U.S. Postal Service does what no private company can: It delivers mail 6 days a week to every address in the country at an affordable price. But the business model the USPS has been mandated to use is outdated and has plunged the delivery titan into insurmountable debt. Should the USPS be allowed to go bust? No. Congress needs to address USPS structural problems now, writes The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Last week, the USPS "reported a $2 billion quarterly loss. 'We are in a cash crisis,' Postmaster General David Steiner said. 'We require urgent Congressional action to expand our borrowing authority and to address outdated constraints on the organization," the board writes. "The important part for lawmakers to hear is that last part."

The USPS business model was implemented when letter delivery and profits were reliable sources of revenue. Since the advent of email, Evites and online communications for almost every business need, the demand for "snail mail" sank, and with it, USPS profits. They write, "Last year the USPS handled 108.7 billion pieces, down 49% from a peak of 213.1 billion in 2006. A majority of what’s left is euphemistically categorized as 'marketing mail.'"

When Steiner testified to the House about the state of USPS finances and its inability to address losses without sizable shifts in its business model, he candidly pointed out the massive demands and their corresponding expenses that the USPS undertakes every day, saying, "We deliver from the tip of Puerto Rico to the tip of Alaska for 78 cents. That’s a distance of 5,000 miles.”

When addressing the House, the "Postmaster laid out two paths: 'First would be to remove the mandates that ensure the Postal Service loses money,'" the board writes, "Second, 'public service reimbursement,' meaning 'payment by Congress in return for the Postal Service doing what no other business would do.'" The editorial board writes, "Start with option one, and let Steiner run the business like a business."

Democratic senator introduces legislation for postal reform that would benefit rural areas

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of the leading champions for rural mail service, on Thursday introduced a bill titled the Improving Postal Operations, Service and Transparency Act of 2015 (iPOST), which he said “includes a comprehensive package of reforms that would place the Postal Service on firm financial footing, stabilize and improve service performance, allow for the development of new products and services and enhance transparency," reports Post & Parcel.

The U.S. Postal Service, which owes $15 billion and ended fiscal year 2014 with a net loss of $5.5 billion, has suggested ending Saturday mail delivery as one way to improve its finances. That move has not gone over well in rural areas, where many people rely on Saturday mail for deliveries of items such as prescriptions and newspapers. The service and Carper seem to have put a lower priority on the idea.

iPost "takes a hands-off approach" when it comes to "whether to allow the agency to scrap Saturday letter delivery," Bernie Becker reports for The Hill. "But postal unions and rural lawmakers have balked at the idea of getting rid of any parts of Saturday delivery, and Carper backed away from previous plans that would have given USPS more latitude to alter its delivery schedule."

The measure, which got cautious approval from the National Association of Letter Carriers and fellow lawmakers, also would allow the Postal Service to remove a requirement that it "prefund retiree healthcare benefits—a mandate that has been the major driver of the agency’s losses in recent years, including a record $15.9 billion loss in 2012," Becker writes. "The agency has defaulted on the payment for several years now. On top of that, it would increase the number of eligible postal employees using Medicare, lock in an emergency increase in stamp prices loathed by the business community and give the USPS greater access to overpayments into pension funds."

The measure also "encourages the Postal Service to move away from door-to-door to more centralized delivery wherever possible, something estimates say can be a big saver for the agency," Becker writes. "But it would also bar USPS from closing processing centers or local post offices, another area where the agency has sought to find savings." (Read more)

The National Newspaper Association, which was involved in drafting the bill, said it "would set a positive tone in the 114th Congress to provide the U.S. Postal Service with cash flow flexibility while focusing much needed attention on rural mail service." NNA President John Edgecombe, Jr., publisher of The Nebraska Signal in Geneva, welcomed Carper’s requirement for USPS to work with the Postal Regulatory Commission to measure on-time rural mail service.

“Service to small towns has demonstrably declined since USPS slowed the mail down by lowering service standards and cutting about half of its mail processing plants out of its network. My concern about this problem has occupied a good portion of my year as NNA president, as I have urged our members to keep pushing for change,” Edgecombe said. “We hear complaints from our members about newspaper delivery that have been long-standing and are now intensified. Even more alarming, we get reports about problems with First Class and Priority Mail. When the mail doesn’t work, small towns are isolated and handicapped in their economic development.”

Carper's bill would require USPS to attach a geographic tag to each ZIP code, identifying it as rural, urban or suburban, and work with the PRC on regular service reports for on-time delivery. It also would put a five-year moratorium on processing-plant closings while the commission examines whether cuts reduced service more than necessary. The bill also would freeze postal rates through 2017, during a study by the commission.

NNA Postal Committee Chair Max Heath said his panel also welcomed the Carper bill. “All of us who work closely with USPS appreciate the efforts of Postmaster General Megan Brennan to address NNA’s concerns. I have no doubt that this Postmaster General understands that service cuts have harmed the postal franchise severely and we have appreciated her open door. We are eager for Congress to get moving with a reform bill that gives USPS some financial wiggle room,” Heath said. (Read more)

USPS plant consolidation will lengthen delivery times, eliminate most overnight First-Class mail

"The U.S. Postal Service should evaluate the impact of slower service to newspaper subscribers before proceeding with 2015 closings of mail processing plants," John Edgecombe Jr., publisher of The Nebraska Signal and newly elected president of the National Newspaper Association said in a news release.

Edgecombe said: “As I look at the list of plants on the closing list and see cities like Salina, Kan.; Grand Island, Neb.; Eureka, Calif., and Elko, Nev., I worry that small-town America is gradually losing reliable mail service. Affordable, dependable service links us to our subscribers. More importantly, it is the bedrock of local small-town economies. It is essential that USPS understand and grapple with these impacts before it makes a decision to close any mail sorting plant.”

USPS "plans to consolidate more than 80 mail-processing centers next year, but communities are almost entirely in the dark about how the changes will impact service in their areas, federal auditors said Wednesday," Josh Hicks reports for The Washington Post. The USPS inspector said in a report that "the agency did not complete impact studies for any of the 95 facilities that are scheduled to absorb the operations of other centers starting in January."

"The review also found that the agency has not informed stakeholders about the expected service changes, despite a 2006 law that requires public input before they take effect," Hicks writes. "The changes will increase delivery times and eliminate overnight delivery for 'a large portion of First-Class Mail and periodicals,' the report said."

NNA Postal Committee Chair Max Heath said in the news release: “USPS rests its service studies upon electronic scanning equipment on its automated mail sorters. But many newspapers are not sorted on these machines. So our mail drops out of the visibility measurements that USPS depends upon to report its success in reaching delivery times. Certainly we are concerned whether a plant closing creates a slower standard. We are equally concerned that if newspapers are not delivered on time with today’s delivery standards, USPS has no systematic way of detecting it.”

First phase of USPS plan to close or reduce post office hours, most of them rural, begins Nov. 17

The first phase of the U.S. Postal Service's plan to close or reduce hours at about 13,000 post offices, most of them rural, will begin later this month, Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office reports. The National Association of Postmasters has learned from USPS that 5,742 post offices will be affected in this first phase. USPS officials have scheduled a community meeting for almost all of those offices. As of yesterday, more than 3,000 of those meetings have taken place, and some decisions have been locally announced. (Photo: Paoli, Colo. post office)

Reduced hours at almost 500 post offices will start Nov. 17. Between Jan. 12, 2013 and February 9, about 1,100 more post offices will see reduced hours. The remainder of the first-phase offices will reduce hours from February and April, Hutkins reports. About 1,500 offices that didn't have a postmaster when the USPS announced its POstPlan in May are included in the first phase of implementation.

About 700 offices without a postmaster have yet to be scheduled for review by the USPS, and are thought to be prime targets. About 4,000 of the first-phase offices had a postmaster before the plan was announced, and about half of them likely accepted a retirement incentive, and the other half probably took a job elsewhere in the service, Hutkins writes. He says those numbers are only be estimates because the USPS hasn't released the number of postmasters who accepted the retirement incentive.

The USPS decided to reduce hours at nearly 2,500 post offices, leaving about 3,300 left to review. In almost all cases, hours will be reduced, Hutkins writes. But he says at least eight post offices in the first-phase review, all of which serve rural communities, are being considered for closure: Knoxboro, N.Y.; Hayesville, Iowa; Seville, Ga.; Paoli, Colo.; Lees Creek, Ohio; Perks, Ill.; Fowlerton, Ind.; and New Trenton, Ind. (Read more)

Community newspaper publishers voice frustration over USPS costs and delivery delays

Delayed newspapers can hurt a publisher's bottom line.
(Photo via NiemanLab)

U.S. Postal Service cost-cutting measures and process changes have slowed some local newspaper deliveries to a crawl, leaving frustrated local publishers searching for solutions, reports Sophie Culpepper of NiemanLab.

Smaller, more rural newspapers often use USPS because it is cheaper than hiring newspaper carriers; however, over the past decade, USPS has repeatedly raised postal rates even as its reliability decreased. Culpepper writes, "By the USPS’ own measurement, about 20% of periodicals were delivered late nationally between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2025, up from around 15% delivered late during the same period in 2024."

The Midcoast Villager in Maine is a community newspaper that is the "primary or only local news source for most of the 80,000 residents of Maine’s Knox and Waldo Counties," Culpepper writes. The Villager has tracked papers that are a week or more late. Delayed delivery can irritate readers, who may choose to drop their subscriptions. "Small local publishers can’t afford those losses, and they have little visibility into — or control over — the delays hurting their bottom lines."

The Villager's publisher, Willy Blackmore, shared his frustration with USPS in his 2025 editorial: "It bears mentioning that the Postal Service is just that, a service, and not a business that has historically had or needs a profit motive, but it is a service that the Villager spends over $49,000 on annually, and we decidedly are not getting what we pay for."

Rural papers in South Dakota are facing a similar struggle. David Bordewyk, the executive director of the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, told Culpepper, "I’m confident in telling you…100% of our newspapers are having problems with delivery."

In December, a National Newspaper Association delegation met with Postmaster General David Steiner, who used to be a paperboy, to discuss ongoing challenges and request a process for newspapers to enter into the Postal Service’s "delivery measurement system," which includes scans and barcodes that could track a newspaper from beginning to end.

In an update to NNA members, Matt Paxton, a publisher who attended the meeting with Steiner, wrote, "Postmaster General Steiner was attentive. But didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate at this time from the USPS’s Delivering for America Plan."

GAO says USPS could save big by ending Saturday mail but would hurt rural people and newspapers

The U.S. Postal Service could save more than $3 billion by ending Saturday mail delivery, but it would hurt catalog businesses, local newspapers, the elderly and rural Americans, says a report from the Government Accountability Office. USPS says it could help stave off $7 billion in losses this year by ending Saturday delivery. "The GAO report agrees USPS could save $3.3 billion by cutting the work hours of letter carriers and reducing operational costs to better match declining mail volume," Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post reports. Last week we reported the Postal Regulatory Commission said in an advisory opinion that USPS should not end Saturday delivery without further study on the effect it would have on rural customers.

Eliminating Saturday deliveries could also "diminish USPS’s image, in part by reducing public contact with carriers," the report said. Congress has the final say on USPS's plan to end Saturday delivery, and lawmakers have yet to act on several proposals that would accomplish that goal, "partly because they’re worried how any change would impact small businesses and the elderly — two loyal, vocal voting blocs," O'Keefe writes. GAO cautioned that the actual amount of savings from ending Saturday deliveries would "depend on how quickly the Postal Service implements any changes and whether they’d have any impact on overall service," O'Keefe writes. (Read more)

Bill on Senate floor would make USPS consult on post-office closings, keep Sat. delivery for 2 years

The U.S. Senate is debating a bill that would reshape the U.S. Postal Service as the moratorium on closing processing centers and post offices, mostly in rural areas, nears its end. The agency has been struggling with finding ways to recoup billions of dollars worth of debt, from the closings to delaying first class mail and ending Saturday delivery. (Getty Images photo by Justin Sullivan)

The Senate bill would delay by two years the end of Saturday delivery, allow mailing of alcohol, leave overnight first-class delivery in place and require the agency to downsize processing centers rather than close them, reports Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post. It would also require USPS to work with communities before closing post offices to determine what postal services best meet local needs, giving communities a range of options, from leaving the office open or opening a postal kiosk in a store. Affected communities would still be allowed to appeal any closure to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Senators supporting the bill say it's a balanced approach to solving the agency's problems for the long term, but a Government Accountability Office report released last week said delaying an end to Saturday mail delivery "could make it difficult" for the USPS to save $22.5 billion by 2016 as planned. To compensate for that and help the agency meet that deadline, the bill would give USPS money to buy out as many as 100,000 eligible workers. (Read more)

The National Newspaper Association, the main lobby for papers that use the mail, sent out an urgent plea this afternoon for members to contact their senators in support of the bill, saying "It gives USPS financial tools for survival." NNA said the bill would keep postage rates for periodicals under inflation-based limits. "USPS argues that Periodicals postage does not cover costs," NNA said. "NNA argues that the costs themselves are out of control and cost measurement is not accurate for newspaper mail."

Faced with the possibility of running out of money, the U.S. Postal service asks Congress to consider 'drastic measures'

Changes to USPS mail delivery have an outsized
impact on rural Americans. (Photo by D. Trinks, Unsplash)

Expensive delivery obligations and government constraints both contribute to the U.S. Postal Service's deepening financial woes. "In testimony to Congress last month, David Steiner, the postmaster general, delivered a dire warning," reports Adam Sella of The New York Times. "Without drastic measures, he said, the U.S. Postal Service could run out of cash in less than a year."

Some of the "drastic measures" Steiner outlined included reducing service days from 6 to 5, dropping "unprofitable routes," and closing some smaller post offices, Sella writes. All three changes would have an outsized impact on rural communities that other carriers, such as FedEx and UPS, avoid due to higher costs.

A large part of the agency's financial turmoil can be blamed on what Congress has tasked it with doing, which doesn't create a profitable business model (which is why UPS and FedEx don't do it), and federal limitations on its financial options, including pricing and pension investments.

For instance, USPS is supposed to be financially self-sufficient while meeting its universal service obligation, which requires it to deliver to everyone in the United States at a reasonable price, Sella explains. "In 2022, Congress added a six-day-a-week delivery requirement. . . .That commitment has cost the agency money: more than $6.5 billion a year."

USPS is also restricted on pricing. "It must get approval from an independent regulatory commission, which limits the agency’s ability to raise prices," Sella reports. Congress also limits its borrowing power, which means it can run out of money.

USPS leadership isn't allowed pension portfolio flexibility, which could have a dramatic impact on its bottom line. Sella explains, "The Postal Service is only allowed to invest its retirement funds in Treasury notes. The Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General estimated in 2023 that USPS retirement funds would have been worth approximately $800 billion more if they had been able to be invested in a mix of 60% stocks and 40% Treasury bonds."

Meanwhile, USPS has turned to one of its few reliable revenue streams: postal price increases. "The commission approved a temporary surcharge of 8% on packages, in light of rising fuel and transportation costs," Sella reports. The Postal Service also requested a 5% increase in first-class mail rates. "That means first-class mail 'forever' stamps would increase from 78 cents to 82 cents."

Most rural mail carriers may be getting a pay cut; some may opt to quit or retire; USPS says cut driven by union contract

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Who goes where Amazon and FedEx fear to tread? Rural mail carriers trod over hill and dale to get mail to their customers, and it may come as an unhappy surprise to those customers that their carrier's pay may be cut. "A new payment system that is estimated to reduce base pay for most rural letter carriers, for some by thousands of dollars, has led to widespread threats of quitting and concern about whether the mail will get delivered in rural America," reports David Dayen of The American Prospect. "The U.S. Postal Service intended to begin implementing the new system, known as the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System [RRECS], on Saturday, despite a grievance filed by the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association union seeking a 60-day delay and a release of the data that went into it. 'We know, and the USPS knows that there are errors that need to be corrected,' the NRLCA stated last week in a message to members. . . . 'The USPS's position is to implement and correct the errors later' (emphasis in original)."

The change has been planned for years, but the information given to carriers has been inconsistent, and implementation has faced delays, Dayen reports: "Two years ago, as RRECS was getting finalized, workers were told that most carriers would see modest changes at most," Dayen writes. "But losing four hours a week can translate into an annual salary cut of $8,000, according to letter carriers who spoke on condition of anonymity. . . . Two weeks ago, the NRLCA said it was working to resolve disputes over implementation. RRECS' implementation was recently delayed. . . . There are rumors that it has been delayed again for one more pay period, but since it was established by a binding arbitration ruling, RRECS will eventually govern rural letter-carrier pay."

"The inner workings of the RRECS algorithm and the calculations that went into it remain a closely guarded secret. But rural letter carriers have been told what the new evaluation means for them, and message boards, private Facebook groups, and other social media sites have lit up in the past few weeks as a result." Dayden reports. "A TikTok video from a carrier, who claims he will lose $12,000 per year, cited the threats to the postal system from the changes. 'A lot of you may not be getting mail today. We've had some people walk out.'. . . . In a statement, a USPS spokesperson said, 'The compensation system for rural letter carriers is a nationally negotiated pay system codified in the parties' national agreement. . . . Parties worked jointly for years to implement these new provisions.'. . . The agency did not respond to questions about how it will ensure mail delivery if walkouts increase."

Rural carriers are not paid like their urban counterparts, "who are paid by the hour," Dayen notes. "Those who work in rural areas are paid based on an evaluation of how many hours per week it takes to complete their route. Some of these areas have an enormous footprint and require lots of driving. But under federal law, USPS must serve all mailboxes, regardless of whether they cost more money for delivery than the revenue they bring in. . . . For many years, an official mail count evaluated how long the route took to complete. . . .There were tensions between the union and USPS over whether the mail count could be manipulated to reduce pay. This became a point of contention in bargaining sessions."

Internal Postal Service watchdog says changes under new postmaster general slowed mail delivery nationwide

"The independent government watchdog for the United States Postal Service has concluded that a sweeping series of operational changes implemented at the agency by President Donald Trump’s postmaster general 'negatively impacted the quality and timeliness of mail delivery' across the country," Quint Forgey reports for Politico. "In a report released this week in response to various congressional requests, the USPS Office of Inspector General analyzed the cost-cutting measures Postmaster General Louis DeJoy put in place after assuming control of the agency in June — as well as the nearly six dozen strategies initiated by USPS operations executives to achieve financial targets."

The Postal Service's "mail service performance significantly dropped beginning in July 2020, directly corresponding to implementation of the operational changes and initiatives," the report says. 

According to the report, USPS officials didn't research how their changes would affect services, and that documentation and guidance for postal workers on how to follow the new policies was "very limited and almost exclusively oral . . . The resulting confusion and inconsistency in operations at postal facilities compounded the significant negative service impacts across the country," the inspector general wrote. The report also found that documentation of the changes for USPS customers and Congress was "generally accurate but incomplete."

"DeJoy, a former businessman and Republican megadonor, was tapped to lead the cash-strapped USPS this summer as the White House escalated its unsubstantiated attacks on mail-in voting — provoking widespread criticism of DeJoy’s organizational restructuring at the agency," Forgey reports.

An internal performance report leaked to House Democrats showed that "on-time" first-class mail delivery was down about 8 percent since DeJoy's appointment, on-time delivery of periodicals (including rural newspapers) was down 9.57%, and internal processing time was down 6.49%.

USPS agreed last week to reverse the changes nationwide, settling a lawsuit filed by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. "The Postal Service agreed to reverse all changes, which included reduced retail hours, removal of collection boxes and mail sorting machines, closure or consolidation of mail processing facilities, restriction of late or extra trips for timely mail delivery, and banning or restricting overtime," Iris Samuels reports for The Associated Press.

Bullock sued the service and DeJoy on Sept. 9, arguing that changes made in June decreased access to mail services in Montana. That not only made it harder for Montanans to vote by mail, he alleged, but also delayed delivery of job applications, payments, medical prescriptions, and more.

Postal Regulatory Commission denies most appeals of proposed post office closings

Almost 200 communities have tried to save their post offices from closure, but nearly all have failed, Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office writes. From January 2011 to April 2012, the Postal Regulatory Commission issued orders on 180 closure appeals. Only 13 were upheld or sent back to the U.S. Postal Service for further review. The agency affirmed closure of the other 167. Hutkins says the number of suggested closures is "totally unprecedented." USPS closed 430 offices last year, and another 240 are expected to close when a closure moratorium ends May 15.

Hutkins says appeals to the PRC have historically been unsuccessful, but were more successful before last year. USPS has closed an average of 100 post offices a year since 1971, and fewer than nine were reported to the PRC each year. A third of last year's 671 proposed closings were appealed. According to PRC data, 93 percent of those appeals were affirmed, and only 7 percent were remanded. Twenty-five percent of appeals between 1976 and 2010 were remanded. Hutkins says "communities actually had a better chance with USPS" last year, when it withdrew 24 closure orders.

To be sure, USPS is likely facing direr straits now than it has since 1971. The agency is billions in debt, mainly because it was ordered by Congress to set aside money for pensions before employees retired. To heal the gaping wound, USPS decided it would close hundreds of "underperforming" post offices, mostly in rural areas. Hutkins says it's unclear why the PRC is denying closing appeals, when "the Postal Service getting its facts wrong, giving out misinformation, failing to follow its own guidelines, abandoning its obligation to provide a maximum degree of service to rural areas, demonstrating a lack of responsiveness to customer concerns, and giving people the impression that the decision to close the post office was a done deal long before the process was completed." (Read more)

Postal Service adopting idea of contract post offices to fill gaps in areas hit by closings

We reported in Janurary that the U.S. Postal Service was starting to contract with rural stores to restore some mail services in areas where stand-alone post offices are being forced to close as part of the agency's plan to pay down billions in debt. Ron Nixon of The New York Times reports the trend is accelerating. (NYT photo by Stephen McGee: Village post office at Nixon's Grocery, Brant, Mich.)

There are now 10 stores contracted to serve as "village post offices." Two more will open this week, and 26 others are under contract and waiting for equipment. The USPS says it's gotten requests from 600 other interested communities about setting up such offices. It has long allowed retailers to sell stamps, but at contract post offices customers can also mail letters and send packages.

The agency hasn't said how much it expects to save by using grocery stores, but has said that closing stand-alone branches will save $200 million annually. It also hopes to offer services in drugstores, retail chains and office supply stores. USPS officials say this will be a "win-win" for the agency and rural communities. (Read more)

In other postal closing news, Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office reports that the USPS revealed total expected revenue losses from consolidating more than 200 mail processing centers during a Postal Regulatory Commission hearing this week. Market research commissioned by the USPS last summer shows the closures would cost the service $5.2 billion in revenue due to a 10.3 percent drop in first-class mail volume and a 7.7 percent drop in total volume. Hutkins says the agency initially said revenue loss would be far less: $1.3 billion. He speculates that when top USPS officials saw the $5 billion number, they commissioned a new study "apparently designed to elicit better, less damaging results."

Rural letter carriers rally against USPS privatization; about 51.3 million rural Americans could be impacted

More than 100 rural letter carriers gathered to rally
against USPS privatization. (The Daily Yonder photo)

Rural letter carriers from around the country gathered last week at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to "rally in support of the U.S. Postal Service, which they said faces an increasing threat of privatization under President Donald Trump," reports Julia Tilton for The Daily Yonder. "The rally was attended by members of Congress from both sides of the aisle."

The event also announced the "launch of the NRLCA’s National Campaign to Protect the U.S. Postal Service from Privatization, which the union said is its top priority to preserve what it calls a 'critical institution that serves rural America and the country at large,'" Tilton writes. "Approximately 51.3 million rural addresses would be disproportionately impacted by the privatization of the USPS, according to NRLCA National President Don Maston."

Part of the USPS service mandate is to get mail and packages across the "last miles," which can add to delivery expenses. Tilton explains, "It is unprofitable for private companies to deliver mail to the end of long dirt roads located 50 or 100 miles from the nearest post office, Maston said. Privatization would add surcharges to such rural deliveries, which include essential goods like prescription medications and documents like Social Security checks and ballots."

Maston told the Yonder: “Rural Americans rely on rural carriers. In fact, the entire community relies on the rural carrier, and that sense of community would be taken away, and the disproportionately impacted group in the Postal Service would be rural carriers, rural Americans, and rural communities.”

Rally speakers "called for bipartisan support for House Resolution 70, a resolution in the House of Representatives that affirms the Postal Service’s role as a federal institution and opposes privatization," Tilton adds. "Since being introduced at the end of January, the resolution has garnered 180 cosponsors. . . . After the rally, more than 100 rural postal workers headed to meetings with members of Congress to ask for their support in backing the USPS."

Postal Service owes it to rural areas to provide better service, New Hampshire columnist says

"Constantly evolving technologies and lack of effective leadership from the U.S. Postal Service" are causing the agency to stray from its basic function—"to provide a letter mail delivery service to every American, no matter where they live, at a reasonable rate," opines George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom, which describes itself as "an educational institute whose mission is to promote the principles of individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, free markets and traditional American values as found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

Landrith, whose column appears in the Concord Monitor, which covers central New Hampshire from the state capital, writes:

George Landrith

The quasi-government agency continues to stray far from that function. While this ultimately hurts all Americans, it especially threatens states with large rural populations. Today, we have other means to share information. But rural America lags behind more urban areas in Internet use, which only makes the USPS that much more important in many areas of the country.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Postal Service seems to be increasing service and product offerings in metropolitan centers like San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and New York, while they are shutting down mail processing facilities and decreasing service in other areas. While service is languishing throughout most of the country, urban areas are seeing a bump in services from the USPS. Recently they expanded a service called Metro Post to other cities, even though it earned $1 for every $10 invested—a 90 percent financial loss. Add this to other new ventures like grocery delivery—now expanding in New York City—as well as a potential move into banking services, and it’s clear that the trend has been to cut back on standard mail service, which everyone relies on, in order to move into other business ventures in big city markets.

All told, customers may not be getting what they pay for. Considering the stamp price increases, we can’t help but wonder if we are subsidizing their ill-fated experiments. While the USPS will fail to elicit attention from the 2016 Presidential field, the issue is still important. The tentacles of the USPS touches too many corners of this nation to ignore its problems. Now is the time for the USPS to refocus its mission and remember its rural customers.

Postal service won't close rural post offices but will cut staff and operating hours

The U.S. Postal Service says it will keep open the rural post offices it proposed closing earlier this year as part of a money-saving effort, The Associated Press reports. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe cited community opposition as the reason for shelving the plan and said the USPS would "whittle down" full-time staff, but maintain part-time post offices in rural places with access to retail and post office boxes. No post offices would be closed under the new plan, but more than 13,000 rural mail facilities could be forced to reduce operation hours.

USPS said it intends to get community input and seek regulatory approval of the plan, which could take several months. The plan would take two years to fully complete and would save an estimated half-billion dollars annually, AP reports. Communities could chose to keep their post offices at reduced hours, or close an office in one area, but keep one nearby open full-time. Communities could also opt for alternatives, including "village post offices," in which postal services are housed in other businesses, such as libraries or grocery stores.

The agency said the new plan will save more money than closing offices because it will replace full-time postmasters without union contracts with part-time workers. It said 80 percent of its costs in rural areas are labor-related. The plan would offer buyouts to the country's 21,000 postmasters. Save the Post Office's Steve Hutkins says the part-time postmasters will be paid "far less" than full-time, and that this latest move by USPS could allow for closings and consolidations in the future. He also says the new plan will reduce window hours at offices to anywhere between six to two hours a day. The USPS web page about the plan is here.

“We’ve listened to our customers in rural America and we’ve heard them loud and clear -- they want to keep their post office open,” Donahoe said. USPS Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan said very few offices will actually have to close. The agency has been pressing Congress to help the struggling service, which is currently billions of dollars in debt. But rural opposition to closing post offices was the "principal barrier to the cost-cutting effort," AP reports. (Read more)

Federal program that ships goods to remote areas in Alaska cost USPS more than $77 million in 2013

The U.S. Postal Service's financial woes have been well-documented, with the agency reporting a $5 billion loss in 2013, as it continues its push to end Saturday mail delivery, with the exception of packages. But as USPS continues to come up with ways to save money, often at the expense of rural residents, perhaps one of the biggest hits USPS takes is in its participation in a federal program exclusive to Alaska, called the Alaska Bypass, that delivers shipments, even groceries, to Alaskans living in areas so remote they have little to no access to stores with basic necessities.

Bethel: a town in the bush. (Post photo by Whitney Shefte)

"The Postal Service is responsible for shipping more than 100 million pounds a year of apples, frozen meat, dog food, diapers and countless other consumer items to off-road villages in the sparsely populated outposts known as the bush," places not connected to the rest of the nation by road, Lisa Rein reports for The Washington Post. "Over three decades acting as freight forwarder, the agency has lost $2.5 billion." Last year the program cost USPS $77.5 million, "with ordinary stamp-buying customers covering the tab, while a long line of commercial interests here benefited, from the airline and shipping industries to rural grocery chains."

"Retailers pay the Postal Service about half of what it would cost them to ship the goods commercially; the subsidy allows them to charge a hefty markup on a can of Coke, for example, in some cases 30 percent or more," Rein writes. "The agency, by law, must pay private air carriers well above market rates in the only corner of the country where airline prices are still regulated."

Costs are high for consumers, but low for businesses. Residents often pay $15.15 for a 12-pack of Coke, but the pallet it came on cost USPS about $3,200, while "Alaska Commercial paid only about $485 in postage," Rein writes. "Not only is this well below commercial rates, it’s even less expensive — about 20 percent less per pound, postal regulators say — than customers anywhere else in the country pay to send a package via parcel post."

That's where the program differs from others, Rein writes. "As part of its obligation to provide universal delivery, the Postal Service ferries, flies, hovercrafts and even dispatches mules to a handful of other remote communities where letter carriers can’t drive. But only in Alaska do packages weighing at least 1,000 pounds — 930 pounds above the heaviest parcel post box allowed in the Lower 48 states — count as a universal service. Only in Alaska do flat-screen televisions, paper towels, charcoal grills, citronella candles and apples count as mail."

And there's little anyone can do about the program, Rein writes. "Despite critics’ efforts, the Alaska Bypass has been untouchable. Few in Congress understand it. Tinkering with it would rankle politicians from other rural states who fear this could be the first step toward scaling back mail delivery to other far-flung places. And even with one of the Senate’s top power brokers gone, in Washington the legislative muscle of this most remote state remains ironclad." (Read more)

U.S. postal workers and letter carriers push against Trump and Musk's privatizing pitch

USPS has the largest physical and logistical infrastructure
of any non-military government institution. (Photo via IPR)

The U.S. Postal Service continues its uphill battle to modernize its processes and manage its financial woes. Meanwhile, it faces a new challenge -- the possibility of privatization by the Trump administration. Mail carriers and advocates believe privatizing the USPS would leave rural residents facing slower and fewer mail deliveries.

"In recent weeks, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have floated the idea of privatizing U.S. mail services," reports Michael Livingston of Interlochen Public Radio, which serves northern Michigan. "Trump said he’s considering putting USPS under the control of the Commerce Department, which he says will help fix declining profits at USPS. The agency has been independent and mostly self-funded since 1970."

Letter carriers oppose the change, with Trump and Musk's discussion leading to "mass protests by postal workers and letter carriers across the country last month. A national 'day of action' took place in more than 150 cities on March 20," Livingstone adds. "Letter carriers say that would be detrimental to rural areas . . ."

Doug Bartlett, president of the Michigan Rural Letter Carriers Association, told Livingston, "If a private company comes in and takes over the post office, they're going to cherry-pick where they can make money, and that's going to be our urban areas, short distances to get out and deliver stuff. And it's going to be our rural areas that'll be poor."

The USPS delivers to every address in the nation, which means its carriers are the ones getting checks, medicines and election ballots to the most remote-living Americans. Any changes to its services mean rural areas will likely be impacted. Bartlett told Livingston, "Rural delivery out in the real rural areas could be cut back to maybe as much as one or two days a week. That would be devastating for people that need those items."

Newspapers want USPS to track how it delivers their copies

The U.S. Postal Service is the main delivery device for most of the country's rural newspapers, but it doesn't keep track of its performance in delivering papers, and the papers want that to change.

Many small daily papers have stopped using carriers for delivery and are using the post office instead, and the News Media Alliance, led by dailies, has joined the National Newspaper Association, led by weeklies, to ask that the USPS performance measurement system keep track of newspaper delivery.

NNA and NMA filed joint comments before the Postal Regulatory Commission in a docket set up by USPS to change the way the service provides its public reports for on-time service performance, they said in a member alert. New delivery standards take effect in October, so USPS plans to provide new categories of information for first class mail.

"NNA and NMA reminded the PRC that the Postal Service relies upon scans from automated sorting machines to compile its data on where mail is and how reliably it is delivered," the NNA member alert said. "But because newspapers are not generally sorted by automated sorting machines in mail plants, newspaper mail is not scanned."

Post offices have improved delivery of periodicals since a big drop in service last fall, when the pandemic increased postal-worker absenteeism and raised package volume, the release noted. The latest report says 79% of periodicals were delivered on time, up 2.1 points from the same time year.

Those numbers do not include newspapers, which NNA and NMA called "a major flaw, both in capturing the whole picture of USPS performance for regulators and in failing to give the public meaningful information on why there are delivery problems." Not only are newspapers in mail processing facilities sorted manually, but those entered directly into a post office (as many if not most weeklies do) never enter the national mail processing system.