The US Postal Service is looking to cut out one day of mail delivery in the face of a ballooning deficit, it was revealed yesterday.
“It is possible that the cost of six-day delivery may simply prove to be unaffordable,” Postmaster General John Potter testified before Congress yesterday. “I’m basically saying that we are boxed in.”
With snail mail fast going the way of the dodo, the reeling Postal Service – which may find itself $6 billion in the hole this year – asked Congress to change a 1983 provision that requires mail delivery six days a week.
“The ability to suspend delivery on the lightest delivery days, for example, could save dollars in both our delivery and our processing and distribution networks,” Potter pleaded to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.
“I do not make this request lightly, but I am forced to consider every option given the severity of our challenge.”
Last year, postal workers handled 9 billion fewer packages than the 202 billion delivered in 2007. And this year, the mail service, which delivered letters seven days a week until 1912, could see its first revenue decline since 1946.
Potter blames the sticky situation on the Internet. “A revolution in the way people communicated has structurally changed the way American uses the mail,” he said.
The exact details of the plan haven’t been hammered out, and would be subject to the approval of the postal governing board.
But Potter said he would look to make the cuts “on the lightest volume days” – either Saturday or Wednesday.
Many New Yorkers said the move would push the envelope.
“What! They’re already too slow,” said Cathy Nuwman, 40, who runs the mailroom at her Midtown office.
“That will slow things down. And one day a week, we’ll start getting a huge bulk of the mail.”
Andre Jackson, 36, who works in the human-resources department of an employment-services company, agrees.
“This doesn’t make sense at all. They’ve been increasing rates for everything, and now they’re decreasing service?” he asked.
And some lawmakers were seeing red over the plan.
“I’m very disappointed to have you come before us and advocate for the elimination of the six-day week,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who predicted that axing a day will drive even more people away from using mail.
Service cuts were first proposed last fall in a postal study that estimated the agency could save $3.5 billion delivering only five days a week.
A similar study conducted last year by George Mason University predicted smaller savings of $1.9 billion.
The proposed cutbacks come just months before the next scheduled rate increase for first-class stamps.
The hike is capped to 3.8 percent – which would mean a hike from 42 cents to 44 cents – but the Postal Service, which has already cut costs by $1 billion a year since 2002, including slashing 120,000 jobs, could ask for more if the budgetary circumstances warrant it.
“We are in uncharted waters,” Potter said. “But we do know that mail volume and revenue – and with them the health of the mail system – are dependent on the length and depth of the current economic recession.”