The U.S. Postal Service has been in the news a lot lately. That’s good because, to be frank, we don’t think about it enough. We take for granted that the mail will be there Monday through Saturday, rain or shine, because that’s the way it’s always been.
We need to worry about those days coming to an end. The forecast is cloudy. Despite many promises and the best intentions of its leaders, the Postal Service continues to lose money while the quality of service declines considerably.
We had high hopes. In 2020, the Postal Service announced an ambitious multipart “Delivering for America” plan to restore its financial viability and improve service. The plan was to cut costs, increase postage rates and get Congress to relieve the Postal Service of some unfair retiree health care obligations. With all that, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy predicted the USPS would break even as early as fiscal 2023.
