A bipartisan group of at least a dozen lawmakers are calling on the U.S. Postal Service to issue a pause on its aggressive strategy to raise prices, saying it is hurting the agency’s business and having detrimental impacts on its customers.
The lawmakers derided postal management for its latest price hike, the fourth in the last eighteen months, and called for it to take a new approach. USPS on Sunday increased the price of a stamp to $0.68, part of a 2% overall increase from current mail rates. The price of a stamp has increased by 24% in the more than three years since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took office as part of his 10-year plan to take the mailing agency out of its financial hole.
The lawmakers, led by Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., and Sam Graves, R-Mo., said the Postal Service was taking a short-sighted approach that was accelerating volume losses in the mail system. They urged the agency’s board of governors to “halt any further rate increases” until the agency can reassess their impacts on its long-term viability.