Postmaster general and CEO, Patrick R. Donahoe announced Wednesday that The U.S. Postal Service plans to end Saturday delivery service in an effort to save money. The plan is set to take effect by Aug. 1. Packages will still be delivered that day, but mail delivery to homes and businesses will stop.
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes and post office locations that are currently open on Saturdays will remain open. For the past five years, the Postal Service has sought the help of Congress to allow the change to five day delivery service, but had trouble obtaining approval until recently.
Last year the Postal Service reported a record loss $15.9 billion for the year 2012. Financials forecasts for 2013 did not look good and to avoid going bankrupt, the agency had to default on billions of dollars in retiree health benefit prepayments. The loss was reportedly not due to a reduction in mail flow but due to the mandatory retiree health benefits costs, which accounted for $11.1 billion of the losses.
The Postal Service says a majority of the population agrees with their proposed plan. According to market research, 7 in 10 Americans support the Post Office's cost reducing change to five day delivery service. "The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation," said Donahoe in a prepared statement for the announcement.
"We developed this approach by working with our customers to understand their delivery needs and by identifying creative ways to generate significant cost savings."
There is some opposition to the Postal Service plan from Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. As he puts it, ending Saturday mail delivery service is "a disastrous idea that would have a profoundly negative effect on the Postal Service and on millions of customers."
Rolando points out that many businesses and elderly citizens rely on Saturday mail service and that a service change "flouts the will of Congress, as expressed annually over the past 30 years in legislation that mandates six-day delivery."
