No mail on Saturdays
Other ways to save money should be considered in addition to cutting services
The U.S. Postal Service’s decision to suspend Saturday service for first-class mail is an option that it had been considering for a long time to stop hemorrhaging money, given how little attention Congress has been paying to its situation.
The USPS has been negatively affected by changes in technology, including people using the Internet for communications and the lack of distribution programs to enable it to compete against its rivals, UPS and FedEx.
At the same time, annual losses have surpassed $15 billion, while the Postal Service has almost $11 billion in pension obligations and health care benefits for its retirees. Moreover, 80% of its expenses are workforce-related.
The proposal to cut one day of servicealthough the Postal Service will continue delivering packages on Saturdayswill supposedly reduce expenses. But a 2011 Postal Regulatory Commission report indicated that proposed savings from moving to five-day delivery for first-class mail were overly inflated by $1.4 billionout of a total estimated savings of $2 billion. Even worse, some people say that eliminating one day of service will represent more lost revenue than what will be saved.
There have been efforts in the Senate to put together a postal reform so that the service can operate more efficiently with workforce readjustments. However, the bill died in the House of Representatives without any alternatives being proposed to solve the USPS’s problems.
This lack of action in Congress is very problematic, because the legislative branch should be the one regulating the Postal Service, and the unilateral decision its director made to cut service days may border on illegal.
Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans are in favor of cutting one day of service. However, this is not a question of popularity but rather of a federal and historical commitment for mail delivery six days a week. There are some people, like the retiree waiting for a prescription drug, who count on this service.
It is necessary to look for ways to save money, but as always, the only alternative is sacrificing the consumer.
