The USPS is a waste of taxpayer money for a service that is no longer needed.
Most people pay bills online and if there are any mail that need to be sent, another method like FedEx can be used.
Mail employees receive huge pensions all from our taxes while we do not receive pensions from our employers.
The junk in the mailbox every day is frustration and a health hazard if not disposed properly.
My policy is to abolish the USPS due to wastage and bad spending of our tax dollars.
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A quick check of FedEx shipping costs show that a .2 lb (3.2 oz) envelope shipped from New York to Los Angles to be delivered in 3 days costs $54.18 (retail rate) if you take it to the FedEx drop off site. If you want to use an already scheduled pick up (your mail box) and use the FedEx One RateÂŽ it is only $10.00. Itâs under $1.00 USPS today. Yes, actual cost is more when you include tax money, but is it still cheaper than FedEx or UPS. Maybe, and that is a big maybe, the Big G government can secure a better rate, but todayâs USPS is a great deal for the people who donât do everything on line.
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An interesting article on the history of the Post Office.
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The USPS doesnât need to be abolished, it needs fixing.
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No. Save the USPS! We look forward every day to the mailman coming around. We do indeed still demand paper billing and paper checks whenever possible. When everything goes full paperless without detailed records of service and charges issued by the providing company, there is far too open room for abuse which certainly happens with increasing frequency. Paper billing is our preferred method and will be for the rest of our lives. Nor do we want to pay the ever rising costs of privatized mail service. We always choose UPSPS whenever possible.
Does this poster work for FedX or why do people keep saying to abolish the USPS? The USPS works for us and we donât care if there is some inefficiency or waste in the system, the USPS is a vital institution which the world revolves around. This is one government institution we donât mind if there are some issues, it is vital to save the USPS.
We appreciate the mailman coming around and this presence of a government worker also means better neighborhood security for everyone. Weâd personally prefer if home owners could choose individual mailboxes at their homes and not have to use community mailboxes, weâd be willing to pay extra for that service. This is one issue when home shopping, all these newer homes do not have their own individual mailbox. Thatâs unacceptable, we enjoy much better security when the mailbox is directly in front of our own house, and the home owner can choose what type of box to install, lockable or not.
Every day except sunday, and sometimes on sunday, the mailman arrives. We wave, chat sometimes, look forward to magazines and go oh by another bill, and some junk mail. We love the mail. If people have a problem with junk mail which is understandable, the USPS could do a better job to allow people to opt out of junk, solicitation, and political. That would be a good idea but getting rid of the mail service and USPS is about the worst idea possible. Please stop with that one.
Thank you.
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I agree with this. Having to get the mail everyday to parse through when 99% of it is useless is very frustrating. Maybe if junk mail is outlawed the usps workforce can at the least be significantly reduced. Im all for a choice being available to opt out of receiving paper mail all together. I bet most US citizens would choose to opt out.
Actually the USPS does not receive any tax payer money. Yes their employees get a pension should they chose to retire from there, but all government workers get a pension. Some people use the post office to get their medicine, so it is very useful to them. I believe a better idea would be to reform the post office. For some odd reason they seem to want to run a charity service for businesses. They get to mail out their advertisements for pennies while the average citizen will pay over 65 cents for one stamp. Now granted these businesses must mail over 5000 pieces to qualify for that rate and they donât get the forwarding or return service if an address is bad, but still I see no reason why the post office has to give it away for 2 cents each. So if they would raise the price they charge for bulk rate mail to a decent price like 45 cents each then a lot of problems would be solved.
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If the commercial /bulk postal rates were substantially increased, businesses would no longer be able to afford mail as a means of advertising. And without the commercialâ junk and politicalâ it would become more expensive for residential users. We might only get mail a couple of times a week, because itâs hard to pay for mail trucks and employees when there is so little mail being delivered. There has to be a means of income for the post office to be viableâ thatâs one reason they now deliver for Amazon! They do need an overhaul. If we only got mail every other day, they could halve the number of mail carriers and delivery trucks.
Well Iâm not saying we should raise the price of bulk mail by a whole dollar. Not even a whole quarter. Iâm suggesting we raise all bulk mail by a dime. So are you going to tell me all the businesses and political organizations will no longer mail stuff out because the price was raised by a dime? The 45 cents I was referring to are the big flat pieces, which will probably be mostly political mail. Political organizations have tons of money. I canât see them shying away from sending out their ads if they had to pay 45 cents per piece. Most of the post officeâs expenses comes in the form of paying employees overtime and when they work over 10 hours they have to pay double time. They definitely donât pay overtime because the first class mail is so overwhelming. They pay it because of all the bulk mail.
As far as delivery schedule goes I disagree with you. I think they would be better off delivering 7 days a week. The mail is backed up on Mondays because they donât deliver on Sundays, which is another reason for paying overtime. So if they had their employees work 6 hours M-F and then 5 hours Sat-Sun that would equal 40 hours and there would be a lot less need for overtime. I know people wonât be too thrilled to work 7 days a week, but the shorter hours would take away some of that sting. Customers would be happy because they get their mail every day plus they get it a lot sooner.
If it was actually sent out it looks like there was a lot of taxpayer money sent to the USPS for, among other things, converting their fleet to electric, and taking over postage for mail in ballets.
It isnât because of the bulk mail, it is a staffing problem. As with any business, they should be staffed to meet the day to day demands of the job. If employees are working overtime consistently then hire more employees to meet the added demands.
So if they had their employees work 6 hours M-F and then 5 hours Sat-Sun that would equal 40 hours and there would be a lot less need for overtime. I know people wonât be too thrilled to work 7 days a week, but the shorter hours would take away some of that sting.
Asking employees to work 7 days a week is a bad idea, and abusive. Everyone needs at least one day a week for themselves, and to have a chance to rest. Many people want to have Sundays off since it is when they go to church with their families, the children are not at school so they can have time to spend with them. Their spouses working in other industries are typically off on the weekends, so this allows them time to spend with their spouse. There are a lot of things that we have to take care of during our time off, and having to fit it in between a 7 day a week work schedule is not fair to the employee.
Customers would be happy because they get their mail every day plus they get it a lot sooner.
I for one do not care that I donât get my mail everyday, there is nothing that comes in the mail that is that urgent.
Most of the post officeâs expenses comes in the form of paying employees overtime and when they work over 10 hours they have to pay double time.
During the 2020 census I worked as an enumerator supervisor, I was surprised at how generous the government was with taxpayer money. I donât know if they pay the same way the Census did, but employees were paid time and a half for any hours worked prior to 6:00 AM and any hours worked after 6:00 PM, it didnât matter how many hours were worked during that day. All work on Saturday, regardless of how many hours were worked through the week, were paid at time and a half. On Saturday, for work before 6:00 AM and work after 6:00 PM were paid at double time. On Sundays all work was paid at the double time rate, even if Sunday was the only day worked.
Like I said, I donât know if the USPS has the same pay schedule, but I wouldnât be surprised if it did, changing the schedule like you suggest would not solve the problem.
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The USPS is a government agency, it operates on a self-funded basis, primarily relying on sales of postal products and services rather than tax dollars.
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Opt out if you want to, but that does not mean others should be FORCED to! Anyone who has been overseas at all can tell you that with all its problems, the USPS is still the best and safest mail service in the WORLD!! Make junk mail illegal if you want, but I do NOT wish to pay bills online, and I still enjoy getting âsnailâ mail from my loved ones as well as sending it. It is still MUCH cheaper than it ever would be to use FedEX or other such private services would be. Not everyone has a cell phoneânor does everyone want one. email is too impersonal. I want to see peopleâs handwriting in my birthday cards!!! Hallmark and others should befighting this suggestion tooth and nail!
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I think the USPS simply needs to be audited to see where the billions are going. I bet some major kickbacks are happeneing in that agencyâwhich is why there is so much inefficiency. Keep the serviceâjust arrest the criminals and clean it up. Hire more staff to reduce overtime needs.
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I think an improvement would be if we could refuse spam. The problem is that everyone has the right to send spam but does not have the right to refuse it. I think it would be cool if I could refuse anything not explicitly addressed to me (ex: current resident, etc.) and also anything mass mailed as an advertisement.
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I like your idea.
Per USPS mailbox guide lines the mail box can be any color currently. (Section 3.9, page 7 - U.S. POSTAL SERVICE STANDARD MAILBOXES, CURBSIDE - see link below.)
You want to opt-out, or opt-in to receive the mail. Easy. Pass a rule where a single specific color mailbox door indicates you only want a certain kind of mail. If you want everything but SPAM ( USPS Marketing Mail in USPS speak) just have a rule that you can paint your mail box door red (stop) or green (reduce environmental footprint) etc⌠This also does not add any time to the Mail Carriers time and effort. Do I take mail from just tray 1, or both tray 1 and 2? Also, the local post office would have a number of opt-outs to tell the senders to minimize their cost because they would know exactly how many address wanted to receive their mail.
There is one big possible downside, this prevents âworthyâ local or national non-profits from sending mailers due to the cost. In my medium size northern town we have 129 rated non-profits. Check your location below to see how many you have, not overall, but located in your town.
My son who lives in California just told me that the array of mailboxes at the Industrial Complex where he rents his shop space just got broken into - they had a box where the keys to the individual boxes were kept - somebody knew that and got into that box & proceeded to empty all of the boxes and removed all of the mail therein.
Thank you Bob for that informative article - it sent me down the USPS rabbit hole and I came out just as confused as ever 
USPS was transformed in 1972 by the Postal Reorganization Act into an independent agency but itâs still under the jurisdiction of the government with funding. Go figure.
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Rather than scrap the USPS, how about we fix it. And here is how you do it. First, donât allow advertising to be sent through the mail anymore. over 50 Billion pieces are mailed annually. Next, change to 3 delivery days a week. Mon, Wed. and Fri. By doing just these 2 things. This could save enough money to make USPS run at a profit and we get the added benefit of no more junk mail!
On what basis do you make that assessment?
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