Mail delays and price hikes are coming to USPS. Here’s why.
“The United States Postal Service started slowing its mail delivery on Friday, part of an effort by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to cut costs over the next 10 years.
The most widespread and significant change will affect first-class mail — things like letters, small packages, bills, and tax documents. Prior to the changes, customers throughout the US could expect first-class mail to reach its destination in one to three days; now, that timeframe will extend to between one and five days.
That “means mail delivery will be slower than in the 1970s,” for an estimated 40 percent of first-class mail, Paul Steidler, an expert on the postal service and supply chains at the Lexington Institute, told CBS.
That’s because the USPS is set to reduce its reliance on planes to transport mail as part of a broader cost-saving effort, instead shifting some deliveries within the continental US to ground transportation. According to the Washington Post, the Postal Service will reduce the amount of mail transported via plane from 20 percent to 12 percent.
According to an August notice from USPS in the Federal Register, using cargo planes and passenger aircraft to transport mail is more expensive and less reliable because of “weather delays, network congestion, and air traffic control ground stops.””