There are few institutions as quietly essential to American life as the U.S. Postal Service. It connects every home and business in the country, enables trillions of dollars in commerce, and for generations has served as a pillar of civic trust. Which is why it is all the more alarming that this trust is now collapsing — not because of a natural disaster or a cyberattack — but because the agency tasked with protecting it has refused to do its job.
Mail theft in the United States is not merely rising — it has exploded. Complaints have surged by over 300 percent in recent years. Robberies of letter carriers, often involving “arrow keys” that unlock entire neighborhoods of mailboxes, have increased by more than 800 percent. In 2024, over 58 million packages were stolen, costing somewhere between $5 billion and $16 billion.