In a report issued on June 13, 2011 and delivered to Congress, the Postal Service stands by its estimate that implementing a five-day delivery schedule to street addresses will yield a net annual cost reduction of $3.1 billion, significantly higher that the savings estimated by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) in an advisory opinion. The report also disputes a PRC claim that the five-day delivery proposal did not sufficiently take into account the needs of customers in rural and remote areas.
Read the news release and see the full report.
The United States Postal Service is facing unprecedented volume declines and a projected $238 billion shortfall during the next decade. To ensure that America continues to have a viable Postal Service, the Postmaster General has introduced a comprehensive plan including cost cutting, increased productivity and certain legislative and regulatory changes that will form the necessary foundation for a leaner, more flexible Postal Service.
Five-day delivery is one of the fundamental changes that will help the Postal Service better respond to changing customer needs.
Profound technological and social changes have altered the way Americans communicate. For many, electronic media have replaced the letter as the primary means of social and business communication. Revenue from First-Class Mail – the Postal Service’s longtime bread-and-butter product — continues to decline as the use of electronic message delivery increases.
Electronic diversion and the recession are significant contributors to a continuing decline in mail volume, which in fiscal year 2009 plummeted by 25.6 billion pieces — nearly 13 percent of total volume — resulting in a Postal Service revenue drop of nearly $7 billion. The trends underlying these declines will only continue.
Current global economic conditions have put the largest users of the mail under severe financial stress. In the past, they spent millions of dollars on mailings and now many have drastically cut back on their use of mail.
While several steps must be taken to fully address the revenue gap, five-day delivery is one of the Postal Service’s best options to significantly reduce its costs to partially offset its unprecedented mail volume and revenue declines, with Saturday being the best day to eliminate carrier delivery.
Why Saturday? It has the week’s lowest daily volume, and more than a third of U.S. businesses are closed Saturday. Most businesses and households surveyed in a national Gallup Poll indicated Saturday would be the least disruptive day to eliminate mail delivery. That conclusion has since been reinforced by recent Postal Service market research.
This website is designed to provide postal customers with information regarding our proposal to implement a five-day delivery schedule for street addresses. We hope you find the site informative as the Postal Service strives to continue to be as dynamic and adaptive as the marketplace and customers it serves.
The Postal Service plans to implement five-day delivery in fiscal year 2011. Implementation is contingent on Congress not enacting legislation to prevent that change in service. In addition, the Postal Service asked the Postal Regulatory Commission on March 30 to review its plans and issue a non-binding advisory opinion.
This site contains basic facts about Postal Service plans for five-day delivery, guides for customers and general information about a potential five-day delivery schedule.
