This Is the Most Expensive Country to Mail a Letter

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jun 1, 9:23AM EDT · Published May 29, 11:49AM EDT

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The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) could not be in worse shape financially. This means, among other things, the possibility tens of thousands of postal workers could lose their jobs, and hundreds of post offices could be closed. A number of observers believe that these actions are long overdue. They think the organization as it is currently constituted belongs to the 19th and 20th centuries.

The USPS revenue was $18.9 billion in the quarter that ended March 31, up from $17.8 billion the year before. The loss for the period was brutal—$1.7 billion, compared to a loss of $1.9 billion in the same period a year earlier. Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy commented: “With our Delivering for America plan, the Postal Service will become a growth-oriented, high-performance organization that operates with greater precision, achieves 95 percent on-time delivery, and does so at a lower cost to serve.” Since it was none of those things in the recent past, it is a huge question about how it can achieve the goals anytime.

To help solve this problem, USPS has presented some of its plans for a 10-year turnaround program. This has just been given to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). Part of this program is to raise the price of a first class letter from 55 cents to 58 cents. The PRC could turn this down. The logic for the move is confusing. First class mail volume has dropped. The USPS believes it can make up for that by raising prices. Of course, the increased prices could drive people away from the use of first class mail.

Part of the USPS’s argument about a higher price for First Class mail comes from its argument that similar service costs consumers more in other nations. In its filing with the PRC, it showed an analysis of first class mail (“single-piece letter mail”) costs in eight countries. The fact that other counties were left out points to the chance that in some nation’s first class prices run less than in the United States.

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Japan’s price runs 77 cents. The cost of first class in Australia runs 86 cents, in Canada 89 cents, in Germany 97 cents, in the United Kingdom $1.20 and in France $1.90.

The most expensive country was Italy where the price to mail “single-piece letter mail” is $3.40.

Click here to see why first class mail may hit 58 cents.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.