The United States Postal Service will raise the price of a First Class stamp to 73 cents today. It is part of an extraordinary recent history of increases, as the Post Office has lost billions of dollars.
The increases have come quickly. In August 2021, a First Class stamp was 58 cents. That rose to 60 cents in July 2022, 63 in January 2023, 66 in July last year, and 68 cents at the start of 2024.
In the most recently reported quarter, the Post Office’s revenue rose slightly to $19.7 billion from $19.3 billion. However, it lost $1.5 billion compared to $2.5 billion in the same quarter the year before. When the figures were announced, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy bragged that the improved loss showed the early success of his 10-year plan to cut losses. However, Reuters pointed out that DeJoy said, …the USPS knows it must make improvements “within the time limits we have for survival.” He blamed decision-making in the past for present problems.
The Postal Service is remarkably bloated. As of March, it had 525,469 career employees and 115,000 non-career employees. It has 33,904 offices, some in towns with under 3,000 residents. There has been talk for years about office consolidation, but it has yet to happen.
Mail is delivered six days a week. That is almost certainly unnecessary. Much of what the Postal Service does has been replaced by new technology. First, there was the fax. More recently, letters and cards were replaced by email. Most documents, even large ones, can be delivered as email attachments. The same is true with bills. Some Americans use autopay for regular payments, meaning they do not need to get any bills.
The Postal Service sends letters and packages overnight. FedEx and UPS have been able to do this since the 1970s. Both private companies can deliver to almost every address in the US and worldwide. The Post Office does not need the infrastructure to duplicate this.
Based on the services it delivers, the Postal Service could be made much smaller and stop raising postal rates every year, if not more often.
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