Nickle First Class Postage Increase Proposed For This Year; Would Be Second Raise This Year

The CEOs of FedEx and UPS make $10-15M, so this seems like a bargain.

It is the results that matter.

The 2023 gross profit for Fed Ex was $62 billion. A $15 million salary for the CEO is just 0.025% of their gross profit.

On the other hand, a November 2023 CNN headline says,



Here are a few quotes from a (possibly biased) blog comparing the quality of the top 3 carriers:



Most people are willing to pay more for higher quality, reliability, or speed.
The problem with the USPS recently is that the rates keep going up but under DeJoy the quality (speed and reliability) has consistently deteriorated.
And as mentioned before, no apparent efforts to counter the surge of counterfeit postage that has to be eating into their bottom line.
I like the UK idea of a 5-pound postage due charge to the recipient. That would certainly get the word out and have people think twice before buying half-price discount postage online.

NPR had a nice article about the proposed pricing increase and comparison to other countries' postal rates.

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244...usps-postage

So I'll buy counterfeit postage and use it on letters to my enemies, without any return address. They incur the fee. How does this discourage me from buying/using fake stamps? It seems to be punishing the wrong person.

The USPS is not free from government interference and requirements such as the prepayment of POTENTIAL retiree's benefit. This unlike any public or private business in the USA. What it was and continues to be as a large pot of money from which the US Government take the money and replaces it with IOUs.

While this practice was change recently, it changes for only new hires and not at all for current employees. See, as an example: https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/...lion-a-year/

There is the risk of people using fake stamps on mail to their enemies, but I have to believe that is a rare scenario. And if the sender is caught, there is a stronger case to prosecute him for knowingly using fake postage, rather than someone unknowingly using the fake stamps.

Throughout history, ordinary "Postage Due" has typically been the responsibility for the sender to pay for underpayment or nonpayment of postage. This is not very different. I like the idea that the practice will generate more widespread media attention and a warning and deterrent for others to avoid the embarrassment.

In practicality, it should go both ways, the sender should also be notified and pay a fine, otherwise they may never know they are using fake stamps and will keep using them.

The average consumer has ZERO ability to differentiate between real and counterfeit stamps. Similarly, neither does the average postal clerk. Any effective effort has to be done at the border, not at the end-user level. (Although this is all off-topic from the subject of this thread.)

Indeed. Royal Mail has pointed the finger at inadequate border controls.

The average postal clerk has trouble telling if a real stamp even exists. How many times have I used priority mail stamps from the 80s only for them to say, you can't use these, they're not real. Not that they're counterfeit, but that they never existed. Rather than look in their book, they are obstinate

I always find it interesting that these rate hikes are supposed to make things better when all they really do is speed up the decline of the profitable first class mail (including postcards) Is that is the long game- to eliminate first class mail? These days the Postal Regulatory Commission is pretty much a rubber stamp. When was the last time they denied the full amount of one of these first class mail requests? Maybe 2010? And comparing the US to other counties rates doesn't tell the whole story. The US has the largest volume of mail and should be the cheapest. Norway sold only 13 million stamps in 2023 (still turned a profit though so that is interesting!) The US printed 13 Billion stamps in 2022. OK maybe they only sold half of them but that is still an exponential number compared to most countries.

5-cent increase from $0.68 is 7.35%. If you buy some forever stamps in June, the value of your lot would be up 7.35% in one month. That's a pretty good investment - assuming you can sell the stamps for face value - considering most investments won't even return that much in one year. Anyway hypotheticals aside, if USPS needs to reduce costs, I don't mind skipping Saturday deliveries. I'm even fine with 3 days/week. It's mostly junk mail and bills these days.

What I'd like to see is an equalization of the "junk mail" postage with "real mail" postage. I can't imagine that "pre-sorting" is worth a huge discount over regular mail. I DON'T believe it. The rest of the mailstream is just as cost-intensive as for bulk mail. It's gotta be.

For about a month I had a job as a "rural carrier associate" at my local Post Office. I was to be the main substitute for the full-time carrier on my route. I couldn't do it--work too hard for me--plus I had to buy an "automatic" car to deliver in that kept breaking down.

One thing we had to do was to sort all these bulk mail flyer pieces of loose newspaper garbage into the mail. This is those "coupon" pages, but they're bundled like newspapers and assembled to be super messy so that special offers would "fall out" when the patron looked at it.

The Post Office decided to have the sender address each one--I was supposed to put each piece of THE SAME junk mail into the CORRECT recipient's mailbox (i.e., you get the one with YOUR name on it; your next door neighbor gets the same junk but imprinted with HIS name). This is time-consuming and super tedious. I spent more time on that garbage than the rest of the mail altogether.

I propose a new program. "Every Letter a Wanted Letter," I'd call it. Bulk Mail rates increase to match regular First Class Mail rates. If a vendor wants me to see his "special offer," he ought to be willing to pay the same postage that little Timmy would pay to mail a birthday card to his Granny.

Sure, it would cause a MASSIVE contraction of the mail flow. But just adjust; don't hire replacements and allow the whole service to become smaller and more efficient.

I'd like to see a return of a premium service that doesn't cost $10! Like domestic airmail. Make affordable "Priority Mail" that's maybe $1.50 or so. Prestige services make YOUR letter distinctive.

This is how I'd like to see things go. Tired of hauling off buckets of TRASH delivered for a fraction of what I pay to mail REAL letters.

Josh

Josh - Great insight. I also have to believe that the bulk mail is on its way into the dustbin of history. How is it possible that it still exists when you can get your "X" seen on the internet by extremely targeted potential customers 24/7. The amount of granularity increases by the hour when it comes to targeting. From YouTube ads to banners on news pages and forums it is THE way to reach out. IMO it is just as if not more annoying than that junk mail in your box but if I were fishing for customers, I would not be looking at a bulk mailing in 2024.

So, where does the USPS go as the First-Class volume continues to slide along with bulk mail? Not a clear answer but the USPS is monstrous money pit. I don't use them for packages because FedEx and UPS are simply more reliable.