No-payment service work rose to 45% of USPS retail transactions as paid-counter activity fell, while inconsistent totals and missing timing benchmarks complicated workload oversight.
The Postal Service recorded 1.117 billion retail transactions in fiscal 2025. About 503 million, or 45%, collected no payment at the counter, up from 33% of transactions in fiscal 2020.
No-payment does not mean no value or no revenue anywhere. The category includes pickups, prepaid mail acceptance, label printing and customer services; meanwhile, two official fiscal 2025 reports differed by 47.3 million transactions and more than 16 million detailed records lacked a numeric timing benchmark.
FederalHiringData found that no-payment transactions per USPS-managed location rose 13% while paid transactions per location fell 32%. The shift is real, but the inspector general’s cost estimates and proposed remedies remain disputed by Postal Service management.
Guess what? All of those pre-paids that come in ARE REVENUE. A clerk is needed to scan them, so it’s work! They’re looking to excess 5-7 clerks from my old office (retired last year). If they do, they’ll all end up back on retrieval rights. You need staff to get the work done.