The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) regularly reports on how well it delivers the mail on time. The most recent report demonstrates that the service continues to have delivery issues.
In the first week of USPS’s fiscal year, October 1 to October 7, the average delivery time for First-Class Mail and other mail pieces and packages was 2.4 days. The on-time delivery rate of First-Class Mail was 92.3%, which was no better than the figure for the latter portion of its fiscal fourth quarter. As CNET reported, this is a downgrade from past targets: “The new service standards for first-class mail and packages, which started Oct. 1, lengthen the delivery time for about 30% of its volume. That means that letters, parcels and magazine subscriptions traveling longer distances could take up to five days to arrive, instead of two or three days.”
The USPS has a tremendous infrastructure to do better. To help reach the revised goal, it has added more full-time people. The USPS says 100,000 people have been converted to full-time since January 2021.
The USPS has a staggering 34,223 offices. 24/7 Wall St. recently wrote: “One absurd part of USPS operations is that it has over 34,000 offices. Once again, much of the communication among Americans and the delivery of documents is done electronically. People do not need a physical post office as much as they did in the past.”
Ideally, the USPS would encourage people to move from physical delivery of mail and packages to electronic mail. It is substantially more effective and much less expensive. One could argue this would make the USPS much smaller, which should be its primary goal. People also should be encouraged to pay all their bills online.
The other practice the USPS should encourage is using FedEx and UPS. It is another way the USPS can be made much smaller. This, in turn, would cut the agency’s number of workers and allow it to cut both expensive offices and its massive fleet of trucks.
Yet another way the USPS could decrease costs is to eliminate the practice of six-day-a-week delivery. It is hard to show that Americans need mail to be delivered more than twice a week.
The USPS continues to meet its own delivery goals. It should not try to. A much better goal is for the agency to shrink itself quickly.
Take Charge of Your Retirement In Just A Few Minutes (Sponsor)
Retirement planning doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. The key is finding expert guidance—and SmartAsset’s made it easier than ever for you to connect with a vetted financial advisor.
Here’s how it works:
- Answer a Few Simple Questions. Tell us a bit about your goals and preferences—it only takes a few minutes!
- Get Matched with Vetted Advisors Our smart tool matches you with up to three pre-screened, vetted advisors who serve your area and are held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. Click here to begin
- Choose Your Fit Review their profiles, schedule an introductory call (or meet in person), and select the advisor who feel is right for you.
Why wait? Start building the retirement you’ve always dreamed of. Click here to get started today!
Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.
Latest from 24/7
Our expert who first called NVIDIA in 2009 is predicting 2025 will see a historic AI breakthrough.
You can follow him investing $500,000 of his own money on our top AI stocks for free.