Today the U.S. Postal Service will fail to make a $5.5 billion Congressionally mandated payment to cover health care costs …
post office
Post Office Hour Reductions, Called a ‘Win-Win,’ Feel More Like a Lose-Lose
Last week, the post office announced that rather than close thousands of rural post offices around the country to cut costs and reduce a ballooning deficit, it would drastically reduce hours at many of those locations. Some, in …
Why Can’t the Post Office Ship Beer and Wine?
The latest proposal to save the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service would allow it to ship beer and wine, overturning a temperance-era law that has been on the books for more than a century.
One Online Petition’s Goal: Ending Junk Mail
As the U.S. Postal Service increasingly promotes its new direct mail program, one group is trying to stop that mail from ever reaching your mailbox.
Why the Post Office Loves Junk Mail
If you ask the Postmaster General about junk mail, he’ll likely correct you. “If you work in the postal service, it’s jobs mail,” he says. That’s why the postal service is pushing an online program to get more, um, jobs …
Post Office Wants to Raise Prices 11%, to 50¢ per Stamp
By 2015, the U.S. Postal Service says it could be losing $18.2 billion annually. To stop the bleeding, it has proposed several money-saving strategies, including closing hundreds of post offices and processing facilities, …
Why the Postal Service is Slowing First-Class Mail Delivery
It’s another move by the United States Postal Service to get a handle on its growing financial difficulties. But it could make things even worse.
Family Personally Delivers Party Invitations, Gets Charged Postage Anyway
Just how desperate for revenues is the United States Postal Service? Here’s one indication: A family in Connecticut recently stuffed 80 invitations in neighbors’ mailboxes for a Halloween block party, and now the postal service …
Success at the Post Office: Fewer Workers Are Paid to Do Nothing
The U.S. Postal Service, which is expected to lose $9 billion in 2011 and may have to close 10% of post offices and resort to five-day-a-week mail delivery, has figured out at least one way to cut costs. By more carefully …
The Great Coupon-Clipping Heist
Judging by the recent sharp rise in coupon usage, it’s clear that consumers understand coupons can save them money. If you’re willing to partake in less-than-legal activities, coupons can also help you make money—as the case of a Long Island mailman who earned $35K by selling stolen coupons can attest. Talk about “extreme couponing,” right?
Shout Out: ‘How I Learned to Love Postal Rate Increases’
OK, so this guy may qualify as an Illogical Rationalizer, the type of consumer who spends money with the sometimes-dubious rationale that it’ll save him money in the long run. But you gotta love a guy who has the stones to try to beat the system by impulsively purchasing $820 in postage stamps.
Can a better business model save 6-day delivery?
Everyone from the Government Accountability Office to the Postmaster General has argued that the Postal Service may need to cut six-day mail delivery back to five. The move would save the Postal Service some $2 billion to $3 billion a year. That’s a big deal for an organization that is saying it might be insolvent come October.
But …
