U.S. Postal Service Loses $473 Million

The Post Office can’t stop losing money. In the most recent fiscal year, it lost $473 million, on $78.5 billion. It is yet another sign of how poorly the USPS is run and how little costs are controlled.

Current Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has a plan to improve the efficiency of the USPS. It is called the Delivering for America program. The time horizon for its success is 10 years, which is absurd given that the USPS is not a multi-division corporation. It is in only one business.

DeJoy admitted the early success of his plan has yet to materialize. He commented, “Our latest results show that we are making solid and steady progress – despite administrative, operational, and inflationary headwinds – toward our goals of financial break-even on an annual basis and sustainability on a long-term basis.”

The primary reason the Post Office has problems is that it is too large and does too many things that are no longer valuable to customers. It has over 600,000 workers and 32,000 Post Office locations. Some of these locations are in towns with under 5,000 people.

The Post Office does not have to deliver mail six times a week. With the advent of email and its use across almost the entire population, people communicate electronically. Most documents can be sent online as well. This largely eliminates one of the USPS services that was valuable two decades ago but is no longer.

The electronic delivery of documents also applies to junk mail. Junk mail is among the items the USPS delivers most frequently. Junk mail could be eliminated as something the USPS delivers physically or the price of this type of mail could be doubled.

The Post Office has a huge overnight delivery operation. This business could move to UPS or FedEx, which price on supply and demand – as any private commercial business should.

The USPS should not lose a dime. With proper cuts, it does not need to.

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