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The Postmaster General asked a Congressional Panel to "end the requirement that the post office deliver mail six days a week," according to NY1. The U.S.P.S. had a $2.8 billion deficit last year, due to rising costs and more people using e-mail instead of snail mail and believes that things won't get better as the economy is still hurting. The NY1 adds, "If the post office was to cut its delivery days, it would not necessarily cancel Saturday delivery. Previous studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day, such as Tuesday." This month, the price of Priority and Express Mail shipping went up and postage rate pricing will be announced next month. Image: The Year of the Ox stamp.
USPS Asks Congress to Cut a Day of Mail Service
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Through Rain, Sleet, Snow but ?
Tuesday?!?!?! How will we get our Netflix new releases that were mailed out on Monday!!!
They should do it. They're so unreliable as it is, we'd hardly notice. If its important, you FedEx it anyway.
why NOT cut saturday. that makes the most sense if your going to do it. stupid usps.
for me it is better to cut Tues than sat since I am at work and miss the deliveries anyhow.
I'm behind this move. the only mail I get are either junk mail or some certified mail which is usually bad news like a suppeona.
from the perspective of employee morale and facilities management, I think you have to cut either Monday or Saturday - have the two days off be in a row. but i also don't think they should cut Saturdays, when people are able to pick up packages or just generally get to the post office without using their entire lunch hour. i see in my building that tuesday tends to be the lowest volume day, and monday is usually fairly busy (at least, delivery wise), but why not just push that high volume back to Tuesday (and maybe make Monday a little more relaxed for the rest of us at the same time)
I just shipped a package to sunny California. It weighed about 2 pounds and those highway robbers at USPS charged me $13! Are you kidding me??? It wasn't that long ago when it was 2 pounds, 2 days, $2.90.
You want to know why they're running a tremendous deficit? A rookie letter carrier gets more than $18 an hour. You gotta love the postal workers union and the damned government-mandated monopoly on mail delivery. As far as I'm concerned, email can drive them into oblivion.
That rate, priority mail package flat rate, is now $4.95. If you were charged over $13, it's probably because your package was too large for that rate. Size restrictions haven't changed so it wouldn't have qualified for the $2.90 rate even before the increase. The large box flat rate is $13.95.
You get $4.95 only for flat rate envelopes and their smallest box. Anything bigger and it immediately jumps to $10.95 for zone 8, which is California. That includes all of their other flat rate boxes. My box wasn't very big. Probably 15x12x4.
Postage to Mexico costs more.
$13 is "highway robbery", but according to their websites, FedEx charges $26.50 and UPS charges $30 for the same service. (10001 to 90001, 2 lbs, no insurance, residential delivery, Fedex box/UPS medium box, 2 days)
Several differences. UPS guarantees delivery date and will credit you if they mess up. USPS refuses to, unless you pay for Express Mail. UPS automatically includes $100 of insurance in the base price. USPS forces you to pay more for insurance. UPS provides detailed tracking information online. UPS will not do that even for insured packages unless you pay an additional fee on top of that for delivery confirmation or registered/certfified mail.
Oh, and you should check out the prices for the dog-slow Parcel Post, too. Barely less than Priority Mail and it can take a couple of weeks. A postal employee told me Congress won't let them get rid of the PP service, but they don't make money on it, so they price it so outrageously that it's not attractive.
Once LESS day of mis-delivered & junk mail? I'm not sure I could take it.
At least I can still purchase stamps from the stamp machine.
Congress will not allow it. Too many rural districts with cranky old people who wish Sunday service existed. It's a ploy by the U.S.P.S. to shake down Obama for some stimmulus, and you know what? It will work.
Isn't the USPS supposed to be operating at a loss?
Why not just lay people off like a normal organization? Surely with the advent of the Internet there is less mail floating around than ever, yet the USPS has never laid off a single employee...something is wrong.
Yes, something is wrong. It's called the American Postal Workers Union. Like all unions, all it cares about is keeping its members at work and well-paid. The USPS has a monopoly on letter delivery and Congress won't allow it to fail, so it basically has an eternal bailout. A really sweet racket.
So you're saying that if a union that ensure that its workers get paid well is a bad thing? Also, you think that institution of the necessity of capitalism, competition would be a good thing? Should it be outsourced to another country to keep the costs down? It seems as though people like to whine when their companies lay them off, yet they think that nobody should be guaranteed job security. Anyway, enough of my little three sentence rant; your opinion is valid, but I really disagree with it.
How do you propose to outsource mail delivery? Send the mail to Mexico then send it back to be delivered? As for the union argument, ask the UAW members how well their high union wages are working for them nowadays. Better yet, ask after the next round of layoffs or after Chrysler folds.
A monopoly? It's a government agency. That's like saying the NYPD has a monopoly on crime enforcement...
It is a quasi-governmental agency. They're not funded with taxes. Do the cops tell you you have to pay up before they'll come help you?
Way to quote Wikipedia verbatim. Go creative debating!
And as you've ALREADY questioned another commenter in a reply as to how they plan on outsourcing mail delivery, you certainly know what a ludicrous idea it is to have a competing postal service delivering daily mail. So now I'm having trouble seeing if you're really taking an issue with this or just being an overall prissy bitch.
DO NOT CUT SATURDAYS! It is the only day that I(and may others) have that can spend any time at the post office, with upwards of 45 min waits at both lunch time and after work. Plus, I work for an employment agency, and even though our payday for temps to pick up their checks is friday, many do opt to have their checks mailed directly to their homes. We usually mail these checks on Thursday night, and generally are received by saturday. This is common practice through out the employment industry. That alone would be financially devastating for so many people. Plus, have you ever tried to get a passport during the week? Do you have an eternity to wait? The window closes at 4:00. Tuesdays would be a better choice for a day to be closed, and maybe with a little more time off, some postal employees could bursh up on their customer service skills.
CUT MONDAYS! cause who wants the bills at the start of the week...
PS. just raise rates to a reasonable price (much like the MTA needs to do instead of this 5 cents here and 2 cents here... just make it a solid 20% jump and everyone will deal!)