Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds—no matter how much it costs us.
Congress is about to cut a check to the Postmaster General for 50 million dollars. The funding is to be paid out over the next 10 years, but my bet is that by then, or sooner, they’ll have their hands out asking for more.
The bipartisan—yes, they can agree on something—spending is intended to bring the postal service into sustainability. That is the definition of an oxymoron: Government Sustainability.
But it won’t be enough. The USPS has lost 90 billion since 2017. That’s a loss of 6.5 million per year. That means without any draconian cost saving changes that might actually help, the fifty million would only partially mitigate the loss of 65 million (based on the historic data above), which the USPS would incur if their operations continued unchanged. That leaves a 15 million shortfall.
The kind of changes required to turn around the USPS, as it remains a government entity, are impossible. For one it’s a government agency, meaning the only way to increase your budget is to spend everything you have and show that your present budget is not enough. That essentially means that in order to receive funding you need to lose money. It’s a habit that’s hard to break.
The Problem
The USPS statistics show that the volume of first class mail is down and delivery addresses are up. For the rest of the world that means a restructuring of their operating plan. The American Postal Workers Union will fight any additional workload.
The Solution
Package volume is up and this can save the USPS by itself. Currently the mail carriers deliver packages. In many cases this requires them to leave their vehicles to deliver them. That means both time, meaning they serve less addresses and volume in the vehicle.
Though there is an argument for cutting down delivery days, especially Saturdays, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Personally, I’d gladly go to twice a week for deliveries. My typical walk to the mail box is a chore (I get paid electronically, so there aren’t any checks).
Looking at the trends of first class mail volume and package delivery, which I expect to say the same, there is a logical solution. Split them. Mail carriers deliver whatever can fit in a mail box or slot and a separate carrier delivers packages. You probably already see USPS vehicles deliver for Amazon on Sundays. Specialization has been incorporated into every successful enterprise since Henry Ford’s assembly line. Separate facilities and equipment would streamline the process and if done properly make it profitable. If Amazon can include free delivery with Prime memberships, surely the USPS can make some money delivering packages.
The Environmental Side
At some point this whole subsidy thing is going to get blown out of the water when some well-meaning politician decides that what will save the USPS, and the world are electric vehicles. They’ve pretty much decide this, but there are downsides. It’s going to cost a whole lot of taxpayer money to replace and figure out how to charge 230,000 vehicles.
That problem aside, I’m not sure if there is anything more environmentally unsound than our mail. I’d guess the average daily weight of my mail is over pound, 95% of which gets thrown away immediately.
The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year – mostly packaging and junk mail. Approximately 13% of the solid waste mass that makes up our landfills are paper and paperboard. 100 million trees are ground up each year to produce junk mail.
Catalogues and direct mail flyers are the main culprit. They must work because companies keep sending them. But the cost to cut down the trees, transform them into paper, transport that to the printing facility, obtain the colors and ink, produce the product, and actually mail them, and finally dispose of them is way out of line with the value they provide. We’ve got the internet for that, and all those companies that send catalogues have our email addresses.
The one thing that worked
Forever stamps were a brilliant idea. It works and eliminates the hassle of buying low denomination stamps to mail a letter. They also disguise the cost to mail a letter, which I would have to look up right now. Bravo for the ingenuity, but a zero for transparency.