Hold onto your hats and wallets, folks, because the US Postal Service (USPS) has decided to invite their good friend Inflation to the party! Starting July 9, first-class stamps will cost 3 cents more, shooting up from 63 to 66 cents. Not only have other mail items like periodicals and advertising mailers got tickets to the rate hike rollercoaster, but this is also the fourth time USPS has raised prices in just two years! Could you believe first-class mail costs have skyrocketed by a whopping 32% since 2019 when a stamp cost a mere 50 cents? Oh, how times have changed!
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, AKA The Stamp King, might seem like he’s just playing villain, but he’s been working on a master plan to save the financially drained USPS. Ever since he took the reins in June 2020, DeJoy’s been fighting against hundreds of billions of dollars in unpayable liabilities. So, what’s the game plan, you ask? Why, two rate increases per year, of course! Sure, it’s been a bumpy ride with rising prices, but sending mail in the US is still cheaper than in almost any other developed country. (Yay? Maybe?)
USPS justifies these price hikes as the “much-needed revenue” to help them reach financial stability, while pointing fingers at inflation for raising costs and putting a damper on consumer spending. But wait, there’s a catch! Those pesky higher rates might just backfire and make people abandon snail mail altogether. Despite the popularity of e-commerce and shipping packages, first-class, business mail, and periodicals still made up a sizable portion of USPS’s 2022 revenue, at around $41 billion.
Alas, even with these shiny new rates and a massive boost from Congress wiping away $107 billion in liabilities, our beloved Postal Service still suffered a staggering $1.03 billion loss in Q4 2022! DeJoy’s ambitious plan to break even by 2023 and make modest profits in 2024 seems more like a distant dream now.
Critics and mail advocates like Kevin Yoder from Keep Us Posted just can’t help but raise eyebrows at these rate hikes. “Unprecedented and unsustainable,” says Yoder, calling for the Postal Regulatory Commission to step in and protect the public service! Will DeJoy’s stamp empire survive, or will it crumble under the weight of constant rate increases? Only time (and more rate hikes) will tell!
