By now everyone is aware of the ongoing and increasing problems of the United States Postal Service.
There has been a longstanding interest by various members of Congress and business world to privatize the USPS - allegedly to modernize and improve its service, but in real life because the USPS is a monopoly with enormous profit potential.
“These changes are happening because there’s a White House agenda to privatize and sell off the public Postal Service,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. “But there’s too much approval for the organization right now. They want to separate the service from the people and then degrade it to the point where people aren’t going to like it anymore.”
This started back in the Bush administration:
"But the agency has been rapidly losing money since a 2006 law, passed with the support of the George W. Bush administration, required USPS to pre-fund employee retiree health benefits for 75 years in the future. That means the Postal Service must pay for the future health care of employees who have not even been born yet. The burden accounted for an estimated 80% to 90% of the agency’s losses before the pandemic."
Imagine any other business being told to pre-fund health benefits for the next 75 years.
Then this past year the prospect arose that disruption or slowing of the mail service might provide grounds for delegitimizing the results of mail-in ballots in the November election. Some post offices were physically removing mail-sorting machines. The justification (which may well be valid) was that the mix of mail has shifted massively away from letters to packages, and different machines are required for that purpose.
But for this post I'm going to set aside politics and just ask whether daily mail delivery is necessary in this modern era. What prompted me to do this was some interesting items I noticed in the philatelic news:
"News from vanishing postal services are familiar everywhere in these days... In Finland the Post has already dropped Tuesday, and is now planning a three-times per week delivery system. The iconic main Post office at the Helsinki city center was closed this summer, and there are not many post offices left in the city."
"Norway Post will provide every other day delivery of mail due to the decline in mail volume... Recipients will get their mail on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday one week, and Tuesday and Thursday the following week. Those who have a post office box will receive normal daily delivery each weekday... Packages will be delivered every day or every other day depending on where in Norway the household is... Newspapers will be delivered every other day, or daily if the addressee has a post office box."
Those reports were in the March 2020 issue of The Posthorn - Journal of Scandinavian Philately, a publication of the Scandinavian Collector's Club.
TYWKIWDBI has an international readership, so I'd like to hear some feedback from non-U.S. readers to help me sort out in my mind how much of the U.S. situation is political vs. pragmatic.
you can cancel daily mail delivery here in the you ess as long as the 'due by' dates on bills can also be canceled / slipped.
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Living in NZ: we get mail every other day, and it's fine.
ReplyDeleteNothing that urgent goes through the mail anyway, and for those items there's always courier services.
In the UK the subsidiary legislation governing the Post Office's universal services obligation ["The Postal Services (Universal Postal Service) Order 2012"] requires "At least one delivery every Monday to Saturday of letters originating from anywhere in the world ... to the home or premises of every individual or other person in the United Kingdom" with a similar obligation for parcels. As it is set in legisaltion it can only be changed by the UK parliament.
ReplyDeleteThe latest research that I have been able to find from Ofcom (the UK postal regulator) relating to acceptance of reduced delivery frequency was in "Universal Postal Service - Residential Survey: April-June 2012"
This survey asked respondents " Some potential changes to the service might make things worse for you by disrupting the way you do things. Which ONE of the following potential changes to the postal service would have the most SIGNIFICANT negative impact on your life?"
There were 8 options and overall 28% responded that "None of these would significantly impact my life" while 6% responded that "Delivery reduced to 5 days per week (Mon-Fri)" would have the most SIGNIFICANT negative impact on their lives.
Tony
Very interesting. Tx, Tony.
DeleteYes we do. USPS built the USA. It started as a clandestine way to exchange messages between the independence frontmen.
ReplyDeletehttps://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-revolutionary-post/
Instead of reducing service, USPS should expand with plain phone service and plain internet service. After all, it's about communication services.
Ask yourself why the Federal Government is subsidizing enormously profitable companies while they provide crap service.
I can’t think of anything that I get in the snail mail that is better received by snail mail than by package delivery service (fedex, ups, etc) or streamed over the internet. Except for handwritten letters to and from my mother to her grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteI live in South Korea. I sent something by post just last week; 2 parcels. The last time I used the post office to send something was 4 years ago. Most of my bills come via email, or phone message now. (Many of my bills are set for automatic deposit, so I don't go to the bank often either.) It might be time to review the function of the post office.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any reason not to go to every other day. Even folks who receive & pay their bills by mail shouldn't have a problem. Most bills arrive with at least a week before the due date, often more.
ReplyDeleteWho receives a bill and mails the payment the next day? The majority toss it on the kitchen table where it sits at least a few days, sometimes until next payday before sending it back. And those who do like to send it the next day would be still be able to return it long before it's due.
Up until VERY recently, the US postal service has been the more reliable option that my mail order pharmacy uses to deliver several of my medications. The only thing they send by another carrier is my (temperture controlled) insulin, by UPS overnight or second day, and it's sometimes a day late! UPS and FedEx often have a hard time getting packages to my semi-rural area on their estimated delivery dates.
ReplyDeleteI literally depend on the USPS to help keep me alive and with all the current issues and a recent medical device order being sent to the wrong state and taking 5 extra days to arrive, I'm panicked that the downfall of the USPS will endanger my health.
We should expand the USPS to include basic banking services. Lots of countries postal services do basic banking. It would mean that people with little access would have access, since there's postal service pretty much all over, in rural areas, inner cities, everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHere in France there is a "universal postal service", which requires (by law) post offices and letter carriers to work from Monday to Saturday. The post offices also offer banking services (I see mostly poor people) and cell phone subscriptions. In Belgium, post offices also offer electricity contracts, license plates, fishing licenses, tickets for amusement parks, etc.
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