Can the Post Office be Saved?

I blogged last year questioning whether the United States Post Office (USPS) would be around fifty years from now.  They are experiencing declining first class volumes coupled with increases in first class postage rates.  The increased rates make billers work harder to convince customers to receive electronic bills which leads to further postal volume reductions.  Which of course leads to increased rates.  And so on.

Well the USPS was in the news again recently.  The Postmaster General, John E. Potter, testified before a Senate subcommittee warning that they might have to stop delivering mail six days a week.  The full story is here.  There are also rumors that rate for a first class stamp will be raised from 42 to 44 cents in May 2009.  The USPS lost almost $3 Billion in 2008 and things aren't looking good for 2009.

I humbly submit my following suggestions to save the post office:

1. Don't just drop mail delivery from 6 to 5 days per week, drop it to 3 days per week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This would mean longer mail delivery times by at most one day. Is there really anything that you can't wait an extra day for?  This would obviously create staffing challenges but nothing that seems insurmountable.  This could be phased in over five to ten years as first class volume continues to wane.  The post office is obligated to meet certain mail delivery times so these would need to be relaxed.
2. There are approximately 37,000 post offices in the US.  That's more than double the number of McDonalds.  That's a lot of redundancy.  I live in central New Jersey and there are no less than 10 post offices within 12 miles of my house (see map here).  Again, a phased plan to right size the USPS network over 10 to 20 years seems to make a whole lot of sense.
3. Drop money losing services.  The USPS web site lists almost 100 different services that they offer including delivery of live animals.  I'm pretty confident that 50% of these services are less profitable than the other 50%.  (Haha - math humor).  Seriously, are all of these really necessary?

I don't make these suggestions lightly and I'm not the first to make them.  Clearly a lot of people will be affected by these decisions.  However, the government, and therefore you and me, have to foot the bill for all of these losses and it's going to get worse unless concrete actions are taken.

Comments

[dave fortney]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. And how about a snail-mail version of the "do not call list". This could be sold as an environmentally conscious thing to do. At least 90% of the stuff I get goes right to the shredder.

[Flint Lane]

Actually the USPS has been fighting the "do not mail list" for a long time. It would cut into their their third class mail significantly causing even more losses. I agree that it would be the environmentally friendly way to go but when you're in business preservation mode, the environment isn't high on the priority list.