The U.S. Postal Service saw an 11% dip in mail and package volume during its busy holiday season in 2022 compared to the previous year, but it successfully made its deliveries more quickly.
USPS trumpeted the news after also boasting of a successful election season, announcing it delivered 54.4 million ballots during the 2022 midterm general elections and the Georgia runoff. It took the Postal Service less than two days on average to deliver ballots from voters to election officials and 99% of ballots made it to election offices within three days. All told, including the primaries, USPS delivered more than 105 million ballots in 2022.
It immediately followed up that work with its busiest time of the year: between Nov. 26 and Dec. 30, the mailing agency accepted 11.7 billion mailpieces. That marked a decrease from the 13.2 billion letters and packages it took in during the same period in 2021. It took an average of 2.7 days to make its deliveries in that period, however, compared to 2.5 days during the more recent holiday season.