Describing the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model as “no longer sustainable,” the U.S. Postal Service Wednesday morning announced it will eliminate Saturday delivery of mail by Aug. 1.
The plan to change delivery from six days a week to five would only affect first-class mail. Packages, mail-order medicines, priority and express mail would still be delivered on Saturdays, and local post offices will remain open for business Saturdays. But eliminating Saturday mail is expected to save the Postal Service, which is in debt, $2 billion a year.
The Postal Service has struggled financially because of the growing use of the Internet for paying bills and communication. It's also the only federal agency required to pre-fund health benefits for retirees, and those costs are escalating quickly.
“Our current business model of delivering mail six days a week is no longer sustainable. We must change in order to remain an integral part of the American community for decades to come.”
Saturday is the lightest mail delivery day by volume and many businesses are closed on Saturdays, according to the U.S. Postal Service. However, many residents receive print magazines and ads on Saturdays that may be shifted to another day.
A Rasmussen poll on mail delivery in 2012 showed “Three-out-of-four Americans would prefer the U.S. Postal Service cut mail delivery to five days a week rather than receive government subsidies to cover ongoing losses.”
A USA Today/Gallup poll in 2010 found the majority of U.S. residents surveyed were ok with eliminating Saturday delivery. The March 2010 telephone survey of 999 adults revealed people age 55 and older were more likely than younger people to have used the mail to pay a bill or send a letter in the past two weeks.
Speak out: How will this change affect you? Will you miss getting mail on Saturdays? Post a comment below.
This is another all-too-clever move to defund government services, complain about their ineffectiveness, and then privatize the service until the public agency is small enough to drown them in the bathtub. Yup, that's the explicit plan.
In any case, I rarely get more than one piece of first class mail a week, so I don't expect to notice much difference.
11:33 am on Wednesday, February 6, 2013 Congress (read, Republican anti-government activists) have systematically starved the USPS by requiring pre-funding of employee benefits, something that no other agency is required to do, and those $billions are not carried on the balance sheet for the USPS. The money off-book and set aside is enough to take the USPS out of potential bankruptcy. This is another all-too-clever move to defund government services, complain about their ineffectiveness, and then privatize the service until the public agency is small enough to drown them in the bathtub. Yup, that's the explicit plan. ***** H.R. 22 (109th): Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (On Passage of the Bill) Republican vote 208 aye , 20 no, 2 didn't vote Democrat vote 201 aye, 0 no, 1 didn't vote Independent 1 aye Only needed a Simple Majority http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/109-2005/h430