Is It Time To Abolish The USPS?

[RiverDog]

For the last two days, I've had a bill appear in my USPS Informed Delivery preview that has not arrived. It's a large bill as it's for our irrigation water for the 2023 season that starts in late March, so I've been anxious to get it. It's the only bill we receive by snail mail as all the others are on some form of auto payment through our credit card or direct debit to our bank account, but we get our domestic and irrigation water through a very small utility district that does not have that feature. I know that the mail wasn't delivered yesterday as several outgoing mail flags on mailboxes in our cluster of rural mailboxes were still up, and our mailbox was completely empty.

This is not an isolated event as it is routinely discussed in our Next Door blog. We have developed a relationship with the carrier for our neighborhood and she tells us that often times there isn't a relief carrier to replace her when she's unavailable and that her supervisor commonly has to fill in for absences by delivering mail himself. They have a severe lack of staffing, not at all unusual for this labor market. Plus, the employees they do have are overworked, often times working 80+ hours a week, which isn't a good way for an organization to operate as they're paying tons of overtime.

I have been arguing for the past two decades that the USPS, if not outright abolished and privatized, should severely reduce their service from 6 days a week to 3 or 2 days. Things have changed over the past 30 years. The vast majority of our written communications are done electronically. 95% of the mail I get is unsolicited junk or required statements from financial intuitions that aren't time sensitive, so why in the hell are we taxpayers paying large sums of overtime for this completely unnecessary service?

Financially speaking, USPS is delivering first class mail at a loss. It's their booming package business that subsidizes the first-class mail side, something that's in direct competition with private companies like UPS and FedEx. Not exactly a legitimate function of the federal government.

I'm curious if others are experiencing the same problem, particularly our friend North Hawk from the Great White North. How do Canadians handle their mail?

[Aseahawkfan]

No. I have had no real issues with my mail.

I have no issue one way or the other with abolishing the U.S. Postal Service as long is it is adequately and cheaply replaced with a similar service. If they keep it, I'm fine. If they change it, I'm fine.

I do most of my billpaying online. Only thing I send are cards to parents who are too old to mess with Zelle or similar services, especially my anti-technology mother who watches tons of TV yet thinks computers and smartphones are The Devil. The nuttiness of humanity.

[c_hawkbob]

Absolutely not. Privatization will mean streamlining to maximize profits giving no consideration to service to all Americans. It'll mean sparser or the end of service to rural customers as well as more expensive service to those rural customers who do get to keep their service. The US mail is in the constitution for a reason, it's our right as citizens to receive the service, privatization would jeopardize that right.

[RiverDog]

Absolutely not. Privatization will mean streamlining to maximize profits giving no consideration to service to all Americans. It'll mean sparser or the end of service to rural customers as well as more expensive service to those rural customers who do get to keep their service. The US mail is in the constitution for a reason, it's our right as citizens to receive the service, privatization would jeopardize that right.

That part of the Constitution is about as out of date as laws requiring horseless carriages to yield to animal powered ones and is a poor defense for maintaining the status quo. Besides, the government could still maintain constitutional control over the postal service. All they'd be doing is contracting out the service. They could still maintain the authority to establish rates, define routes, and terms of service.

But that's not the only option I mentioned in the OP. There's also the issue of cutting back on delivery days. There is no reason whatsoever for anyone to have first class mail delivery to their doorstep (or a short walk to the community mailbox) 6 days a week. At least from my perspective, given the problems we're having with our first class mail delivery, cutting back to 2 or 3 days a week delivery would make it much more manageable and efficient.

[NorthHawk]

For the last two days, I've had a bill appear in my USPS Informed Delivery preview that has not arrived. It's a large bill as it's for our irrigation water for the 2023 season that starts in late March, so I've been anxious to get it. It's the only bill we receive by snail mail as all the others are on some form of auto payment through our credit card or direct debit to our bank account, but we get our domestic and irrigation water through a very small utility district that does not have that feature. I know that the mail wasn't delivered yesterday as several outgoing mail flags on mailboxes in our cluster of rural mailboxes were still up, and our mailbox was completely empty.

This is not an isolated event as it is routinely discussed in our Next Door blog. We have developed a relationship with the carrier for our neighborhood and she tells us that often times there isn't a relief carrier to replace her when she's unavailable and that her supervisor commonly has to fill in for absences by delivering mail himself. They have a severe lack of staffing, not at all unusual for this labor market. Plus, the employees they do have are overworked, often times working 80+ hours a week, which isn't a good way for an organization to operate as they're paying tons of overtime.

I have been arguing for the past two decades that the USPS, if not outright abolished and privatized, should severely reduce their service from 6 days a week to 3 or 2 days. Things have changed over the past 30 years. The vast majority of our written communications are done electronically. 95% of the mail I get is unsolicited junk or required statements from financial intuitions that aren't time sensitive, so why in the hell are we taxpayers paying large sums of overtime for this completely unnecessary service?

Financially speaking, USPS is delivering first class mail at a loss. It's their booming package business that subsidizes the first-class mail side, something that's in direct competition with private companies like UPS and FedEx. Not exactly a legitimate function of the federal government.

I'm curious if others are experiencing the same problem, particularly our friend North Hawk from the Great White North. How do Canadians handle their mail?

Our situation seems to be similar in that the PO is in competition with the private couriers and it has a mandate to deliver mail to all places at the same rate even if it's the far north.
There is also some talk from time to time about the necessity of keeping it, but at this point it would probably be political suicide because the older people vote more than the younger ones who use it much less.
The other thought is if the PO messes up deliveries or some other complaint, there is a political avenue to pursue whereas with a private courier they could just tell you to pound sand if they wish.
It's also losing money at the moment but was profitable from 2014 -2017. I'm sure there are some cost cutting measures that are going to be looked at in the future but I doubt anything will happen until a new Gov't is elected.

[Aseahawkfan]

You use "pound sand" in Canada too. That's great.

[RiverDog]

Our situation seems to be similar in that the PO is in competition with the private couriers and it has a mandate to deliver mail to all places at the same rate even if it's the far north.
There is also some talk from time to time about the necessity of keeping it, but at this point it would probably be political suicide because the older people vote more than the younger ones who use it much less.
The other thought is if the PO messes up deliveries or some other complaint, there is a political avenue to pursue whereas with a private courier they could just tell you to pound sand if they wish.
It's also losing money at the moment but was profitable from 2014 -2017. I'm sure there are some cost cutting measures that are going to be looked at in the future but I doubt anything will happen until a new Gov't is elected.

The other thought is if the PO messes up deliveries or some other complaint, there is a political avenue to pursue whereas with a private courier they could just tell you to pound sand if they wish.

I've found that the opposite is true, at least as far as the US government goes. If the government messes up, there is very little in the way of a political avenue to pursue. File a complaint and all you'll get is some double talk from your representative. The government has no competition and no profit motive, and with very rare exceptions, no one ever loses his/her job due to incompetence, and they all know it. But that's a debate for another topic.

There are some elderly people in rural areas that depend on the USPS to deliver mail order drugs, but those qualify as packages and could easily be delivered by the current network of private carriers, ie UPS, FedEx, DHL, and a number of smaller logistics companies. There is very little time critical first class mail that is delivered by USPS that couldn't be delivered by one of the private carriers.

For my own part, I very seldom use USPS for outgoing mail. I do utilize my bank's bill pay feature, where the bank writes a check then mails it to the vendor, for one utility bill, and I have opted to write a check for my income and property tax payments, and from time to time, I've mailed and received personal checks to/from friends for things like football tickets, so perhaps I receive/send 10 1st class mail per year, and even those could easily be replaced by some other mode of payment or delivery. I simply do not see the need for time sensitive snail mail that can't be replaced with some other mode. It's a thing of the past.