Jan. 20, 2023

USPS Reports Consistent Performance Across All Mail Categories

Immediate Openings, Delivering for America

PENNSYLVANIA — The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics for the second week of the second quarter for fiscal year 2023. The data shows high performance across First-Class Mail, Marketing Mail, and Periodicals with an average time of 2.5 days to deliver a mailpiece across the postal network.

FY23 second quarter service performance scores covering Jan. 1 through Jan.13 included:

First-Class Mail: 90.8% of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal first quarter.
Marketing Mail: 93.9% of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal first quarter.
Periodicals: 84.7% of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal first quarter.

One of the goals of Delivering for America, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan for achieving financial sustainability and service excellence, is to meet or exceed 95 percent on-time service performance for all mail and shipping products once all elements of the plan are implemented. Service performance is defined by the Postal Service as the time it takes to deliver a mailpiece or package from its acceptance into our system through its delivery, as measured against published service standards.

With the 2022 holiday season now concluded, the Postal Service continues its focus on improving service reliability for the American public and business customers through modernizing the outmoded and aging postal network across the nation.

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The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to 169 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America’s most valued and trusted brands.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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USPS NEWS

Media contacts

Mark Lawrence
mark.e.lawrence@usps.gov

Connecticut news

Jan. 20, 2023

U.S. Postal Service to Issue Ernest J. Gaines Black Heritage Stamp

What:

The 46th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Ernest J. Gaines (1933-2019). Best known for novels “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “A Lesson Before Dying,” Gaines drew from his childhood as the son of sharecroppers on a Louisiana plantation to explore the untold stories of rural African Americans.

The first-day-of-issue event for the Ernest J Gaines Black Heritage stamp is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtags #BlackHeritageStamps and #ErnestGainesStamp.

Who:

The Honorable Donald Lee Moak, Governor, USPS Board of Governors

When:

Monday, Jan. 23, 2023, at 11 a.m. CST

Where:

University of Louisiana at Lafayette
620 McKinley Street
Lafayette, LA 70503

RSVP:

For additional information about the ceremony location and parking on campus, dedication ceremony attendees are encouraged to RSVP at: www.usps.com/ernestgainesbh

Background:

Adding a vital African American voice to American literature, Ernest J. Gaines brought worldwide attention to generations of men and women who asserted their own dignity in the face of racial oppression and violence.

Gaines was born on Riverlake Plantation in the town of Oscar just outside New Roads, LA, where his family had lived in the former slave quarters for five generations. He moved to California in 1948, but for decades afterward, his fiction reflected a deep and unbreakable connection to the rural Louisiana of his youth.

After serving in the Army for two years and graduating from college, Gaines received a prestigious fellowship in 1958 to study creative writing at Stanford University. He published his first novel, “Catherine Carmier,” in 1964, but he achieved true fame, widespread acclaim, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1971 with “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” a novel chronicling the recollections of its 110-year-old African American protagonist, whose life spans slavery to the civil rights era.

In 1981, Gaines took a position teaching creative writing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana) and soon became its writer-in-residence. In 1983, he published the novel “A Gathering of Old Men,” about a group of African American men who assert their humanity and pride in the face of long-standing prejudice and violence.

In 1993, Gaines published his most critically and popularly acclaimed novel, “A Lesson Before Dying,” about a college-educated African American teacher who provides education and inspiration to a young farmhand awaiting execution for murder. Over the course of their difficult visits in prison, they form a bond that shows both the need to resist those who would deny them their dignity and self-respect. In addition to earning the National Book Critics Circle Award, “A Lesson Before Dying” resulted in Gaines receiving a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”

In 2013, Gaines accepted the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, calling it the greatest honor he had ever received. Today the Baton Rouge Area Foundation continues to endow an annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, which recognizes African American fiction writers who are just beginning to rise to national prominence.

Mike Ryan designed the stamp with art by Robert Peterson. Greg Breeding served as art director.

The Ernest J. Gaines Black Heritage stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp. It will always be equal in valued to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the USA Philatelic or at Post Office locations nationwide.

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The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

MEDIA ADVISORY

Media contacts

Amy Gibbs
amy.n.gibbs@usps.gov