Postmaster general: Get used to ‘uncomfortable’ rate hikes
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he’ll advocate for raising prices until “we have accomplished our objective of projecting a trajectory that shows us being self-sustaining.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he’ll advocate for raising prices until “we have accomplished our objective of projecting a trajectory that shows us being self-sustaining.”
The Postal Service’s plan falls well short of White House goals to move the entire federal civilian fleet to electric vehicles by 2035. The mail agency’s 217,000 vehicles make up the largest share of the government’s civilian vehicles.
The Postal Service formally placed its initial $2.98 billion order for 50,000 vehicles with at least 10,019 of them being battery-electric vehicles. That represents a doubling of electric vehicles from the initial plan.
The plan largely ignores White House calls to replenish the mail-service fleet with electric vehicles and has drawn sharp criticism from the Biden administration, Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists.
Congress mustered rare bipartisan support for the Postal Service package, dropping some of the more controversial proposals to settle on core ways to save the service and ensure its future operations.
Congress would lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt and would require it to continue delivering mail six days per week under bipartisan legislation the House approved Tuesday.
Nearly 3.4 billion parcels are expected to crisscross the country this holiday season, representing an estimated increase of about 400 million compared with last year.
U.S. Postal Service officials say they have the staffing and resources to handle the coming onslaught of holiday packages, and avoid a repeat of the disastrous 2020 season that brought mail delivery to a crawl.
The primary fleet of vehicles—dating to 1987—was due to be replaced under a new contract but the winning bid for the new trucks is being challenged.
Rates on periodicals would increase by more than 8% as of Aug. 29, according to agency filings. The price jump is part of a broad plan pushed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to overhaul mail operations.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the Postal Service is weighed down by $188.4 billion in liabilities, and that he expects it to lose $160 billion over the next 10 years.
A former labor leader and Obama administration official was elected Tuesday to serve as chair of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, marking the first step in a potential shakeup under President Joe Biden.
U.S. online holiday sales are expected to shatter previous records. Adobe Analytics, which measures sales at 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers, predicts a total of $189 billion in online holiday sales, a 33% increase compared to last year.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he would “suspend” several of his initiatives until after the election “to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail.”
Anticipating an avalanche of absentee ballots, the U.S. Postal Service sent detailed letters to 46 states and the District of Columbia warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.
The new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, offered a gloomy picture of the 630,00-employee agency Friday in his first public remarks since taking the top job in June.
Postal Service officials, bracing for steep losses from the nationwide shutdown caused by the pandemic, have warned they will run out of money by the end of September without help from Congress.
If approved by regulators, the increase to the cost of mailing a 1-ounce letter would be the biggest since 1991.
The mismatched identities causes problems, especially for businesses, because ZIP codes determine the city used in an address.
The postal service on Wednesday reported a quarterly loss of $562 million, despite growth in package delivery, due to continued erosion in the use of first-class mail as well as expensive mandates for its retiree health care obligations.