Taking pride in its “last-mile” scope of operation, the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to roughly 157 million places each year.
Think in terms of corporate ubiquity and that amounts to more than 11,000 times the number of locations as McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.
North Missouri Congressman Sam Graves wants to make sure the accustomed service of the post office continues to all those homes and businesses.
Graves, a Republican, has re-introduced legislation that would express the sense of the U.S. House that Saturday mail delivery be preserved.
The territory he represents, the Missouri 6th District, stretches across the top tier of the state, a largely rural area that Graves says has an even more profound need for the six-day service.
“Small businesses could be forced to endure costly delays in delivery, which would result in lost revenue,” he said in announcing the bill’s filing this month. “Individuals could miss paying bills or receiving necessities they’ve ordered, like prescription medication.”
Not even the Postal Service knows when six-day delivery became an American standard. Though it had been the practice long before this, the six-day schedule did not become codified legislatively until the 1981 fiscal year.
As recently as 1950, some Americans got home delivery twice a day.