Post Office Ruining First-Class Mail

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 13, 7:30AM EDT

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Post Office Ruining First-Class Mail — © dhdezvalle / iStock via Getty Images

People who send out First-Class Mail have become accustomed to paying over $0.50, but the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to jack up prices. They will rise from the current $0.63 to $0.66, which is another sign that the USPS is inefficient and outdated. (These companies control over half their industries.)
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CNBC pointed out that the increase will mean a 34% jump in the price of a First-Class stamp since 2018. The increase still has to be approved by the Postal Regulatory Service.
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The USPS said the price increase is needed to “provide it with much-needed revenue.” The other option is to cut costs, which would make much more sense, particularly for the public.

The USPS still has just over 516,000 full-time workers. That is up from 496,000 two years ago. The USPS has 32,000 locations, which is a ridiculously large figure. Small towns with 3,000 people have a post office. People could travel to the next town over, often easily. Carriers could deliver to the next town, too.
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The USPS seems to believe delivering mail six times a week is necessary. This is unnecessary, with email and electronic files as part of everyday American life. Bills that used to be delivered and paid by mail can virtually all be paid for online. The primary reason for physical delivery is junk mail, magazines and newspapers.
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The USPS continues to order new vehicles. The most recent batch included some electric vehicles. The USPS should reduce its fleet as trucks go out of service. The USPS should not need them in the future.

Most of what the USPS does today is unnecessary. Even the shipping of packages can be handled effectively by UPS and FedEx. A higher price First-Class stamp is a temptation to waste more money.

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.