What would you do if you couldn't get your mail? The United States Postal Service (USPS) is something that many of us take for granite. We just figure it will always be there for us. I'm sure all of you would be very upset if suddenly you couldn't get that gift that you got, because FedEx, UPS, and other companies refuse to ship to your house. When this happens the USPS takes care of it for you, but what if they weren't there?
According to prnewswire.com, "The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today filed its 2009 fiscal year-end financial results, showing a net loss of $3.8 billion for the year -- despite cost-cutting efforts resulting in $6 billion in cost savings and a $4 billion reduction in required payments for retiree health benefits. Cost savings reflect a reduction of 40,000 career USPS employees as well as reductions in overtime hours, transportation and other costs. The $4 billion reduction in required retiree health benefit payments was passed into law for fiscal 2009 to allow USPS to maintain fiscal solvency while continuing to provide universal, affordable service to the nation."
With the rise of the computer age, less and less people are using postal service on a daily basis, and without those individuals buying mailing products such as stamps, suddenly a massive amount of money is being lost.
Now many of you may be thinking, well less sending should mean less shipped, so it should even out. That would make sense, but that is not the case. The USPS still has to go to all of those homes whether they received mail or not, because there may be a chance that they are wishing to mail something themselves. Basically, the mail man has to check to see if the red flag is up on the mail box.
In larger cities this is less of an issue. It is easy to check every one's mail boxes, but the true problem comes in the rural areas. In many rural areas, there are individuals who live miles and miles back on a gravel road who only receive mail maybe once a week, sometimes less, but the mail carrier must go back to their mail box everyday anyway.
Now before you jump to the conclusion that we should just not visit these individuals unless they are receiving mail. What if that individual has mail to send? You may say, well he or she can go to town and mail it. Well what if the individual is unable to drive due to a health condition or old age?
This is the dilemma that the USPS has been facing for the last several years. It is caught between doing what is right and doing what is more cost effective. Currently the USPS is self-supporting. It makes all of the money that it needs to remain afloat through the sale of postage stamps and other postage products.
The only solution that seems viable is to get support from the government. The USPS is a service that is too valuable to be shut down or overlooked.
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I have a student who lives in a very remote location near Fortuna, ND. She only gets mail every other day. So mail services have already been trimmed for rural areas.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised to learn a while back that the US Postal Service is not a government agency. I always thought they were, but they are a business. (I could be wrong on how that works, but that is the understanding I have.)
I would think the amount of things that are shipped would have increased because of all the online ordering people do. I know I shop online way more than I ever used to. Granted, most of it comes UPS or FedEx. They probably need to look at those two competitors and see how they can match pricing or something. I know I see a lot of commercials for flat rate shipping. I use it fairly often.
I had no idea that the USPS was suffering so badly. It makes sense, though. Your example of mailmen having to go to each house to check to see if they have mail to be sent out can be pretty spendy. The mailman comes to my house everyday to see if I have something that needs to be mailed. I usually just drop it off at a blue box outside a convenience store, but since learning he comes to my house everyday, anyway, I have started to put it in my mailbox at home.
ReplyDeleteYou hear of all these companies cutting costs and trying to cut corners wherever they can just so they can stay afloat. I didn’t really ever stop to think that the United States Postal Service was one of those companies suffering. I just thought that everybody needs to send mail and everybody needs to receive their mail. I guess that a lot of companies are doing things on the internet now such as banking and paying bills.
ReplyDeleteIt seems they are in a tough situation and need to come up with a good plan that will still benefit those people that they service that live out in the middle of nowhere and still be cost effective for the USPS.