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Loading...Do We Still Need the Postal Service?
The US Postal Service has announced that it is laying off 120,000 workers and making sweeping changes to the benefits of thousands of others. These measures are on top of a proposal to close some 3,700 post offices throughout the US. To stay afloat, Congress must pass some controversial measures, says CNN, or the USPS is due to go bankrupt on September 30:
- Voiding union contracts to lay off postal workers with more than six years of service.
- Moving employees out of federal health and retirement plans.
- Ending Saturday service.
- Raiding pension surpluses to make a mandated payment on retirement benefit fund.
The USPS’s finances are, to understate the matter, in dire straits. Declines in first-class mail volume and increases in costs for wages and benefits have contributed to a loss of $2.2 billion last quarter. All told, the USPS’s deficit is projected to be $9 billion this year. 220,000 positions need to be eliminated by 2015 but only 100,000 can be cut through attrition, hence the need to lay of 120,000.
It’s saddening to think of post offices closing, especially those in rural communities where they’ve been lifelines to the rest of the world. In my own New Jersey neighborhood, a recent reshuffling of postal workers’ routes — a change no doubt related to imminent staff cutbacks — has meant that our mail is no longer delivered by the letter carrier we’ve long been on a first-name basis with. The whole neighborhood feels different without the sight of his lanky form walking up and down the sidewalk and his offhand “how you doin’?”
But then, less and less of our mail is anything but junk mail, computer-generated appeals from charities in Alaska, offers to refinance our mortgage, catalogs we didn’t ask for. It’s always exciting to get the boxes of cookies and coffee my mom sends from California and the hand-written notes from my aunt from her endless supply of stationery. More and more, we’ve switched to electronic bills which is, after all, better for the environment and cheaper for companies to process. Plus, I’m more likely to see the statements in my email inbox than the paper envelope that gets tossed on the kitchen table and buried under the flyers my son’s school sends home. Like many, we stay in touch with family and friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs. We used to send out photo Christmas cards, but I post photos regularly on my blog (plus, we’re one of those families who used to take so long to write the holiday newsletter, it never was sent out till after the New Year).
Is it possible that mail is simply, as Josh Marshall asks on Talking Points Memo, dead? That the USPS is obsolete like typewriters and rotary phones, the victim of a massive cultural change created by the growth of the personal computer and the smart phone? That, as Ezra Klein wrote over a year ago on the Washington Post while suggesting that mail delivery could even be reduced eventually to Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the USPS is simply a “dying industry” in no small part because of our society’s preference for instant communication that doesn’t require finding a stamp somewhere in a desk drawer?
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Read more: cultural change, cultural shift, ecommerce, email, facebook, letter, mail, post office, postal service, technology, twitter, USPS
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+ add your ownThe postal service is still a matter of practicality for some of us. Everyone wants you to switch to online billing but even if you are comfortable with the concept it has to be workable. I live in a small rural Indiana community and all we have access to is dial up. Internet access is all but useless to us because most sites require far to fast a connection speed to support most of the graphics or animated features. Half the buttons we need to process never even load and the best chance we have to pull up a big site is some ungodly hour in the morning. Sometimes I wonder what the point in getting it was, but we are at least fortunate enough to have the computer. I wonder what all the people who don't have easy access to the net would do if there were no mailbox to connect to the world.
The USPS employees I encounter still do their jobs with pride Alfred D. One reason my state of Washington still needs the USPS is that we do our voting by mail.But in addition to that,I like my mail carrier ,often talking sports,etc.,when he's filling the mail boxes at my town house complex.He earns everything he gets.
Go USPS!! If you contact your Representatives and Senators to help save the US postal service, you will make a difference!!!!!! Most US citizens probably don't even realize what's taking place meaning what is really causing the money problems beside declining revenue with the postal service and the effect of slicing the postal service in half or more will have for our country. I read that if the postal service was a civilian company the postal service would be second to Walmart with number of employees and the operator of the largest fleet of vehicles in the WORLD. And also, the USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters.*
(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org//wiki//United_States_Postal_Service)
Do you realize what laying off or firing half or more of those employees will do for the economy of the US? I'm calling on everyone that is able to help save the US postal service! We need you!!
Of course we do. Believe it or not there are MANY people in this country who are NOT internet users.They are called THE ELDERLY, THE POOR ,THE UNDER EDUCATED even MANY middle aged people who work in nonclerical jobs are not computer literate.In 1999, my 65 year old husband thought that computers were "THE ANTI-CHRIST" and wouldn't let one in the house. He was "considering" a cell phone. He thought it might be handy to have in the car in case of car trouble .At the time cell phones were about the size of shoeboxes(we used to buy shoes IN BOXES) My point is that things change faster for younger people. I now live in an assisted living. OUR town has wi-fi but Maybe 6 out of 50 of us here USE computers--several only for e-mail.HOWEVER ,every morning at 9:30 theres a traffic jam in the hall .EVERYBODY waits for the MAIL LADY!
I am old, and still like to send personal notes, thank yous, by mail. The world doesn't need to lose any more good manners -- letters are to be savored, not instantaneous and fleeting, as are emails and tweets. I also like books, the feel of the pages, not a "reader." I agree that the junk mail could and should be eliminated. I pay bills electronically -- it is convenient and saves paper. I'm sure they can save money by cutting back on the number of days of mail delivery. I live in the country and have a post office box. Our office is open 0700--1600 and not on Saturday. We need a scapel for these cuts, not a hatchet that takes out all.
Yes, we need the postal service. Portions of their business have been taken by UPS and other private delivery services which choose the ideas urban areas. The USPS has to deliver to every townhouse, farm house, and dog house in America. The employees are not to blame for this, and their wages and benefits may have to come from the government until the situation can be organized.
Of Course we need the US Postal Service.
Not everyone does all their business, personal and financial on the computer.
I, for one, do not trust to do my banking on line OR pay bills.
There is just way too much chance for hackers to get my information. I don't know why so many people think it's so great to pay bills, etc. on line.
I rather sit down for an hour or two a month and write out my checks, keep my personal log, and mail them at the Post Office.
Works Fine For Me...
When I was a Postmaster in 1998, I posted this sign in my Post Office:
"How much is a Billion?
A Billion seconds ago, it was 1954.
A Billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
A Billion hours ago, we were in the Stone Age.
A Billion years ago, something that might someday become human crawled out of the primordial ooze.
A BILLION LETTERS AGO, IT WAS THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY IN THE USPS!!!
Damn it, we did our job with pride!!!
(continued)
The USPS employs over 596,000 workers and over 218,000 vehicles, and if it were a civilian company, it would be the second-largest employer in the United States after Wal-Mart, and the operator of the largest vehicle fleet in the world.[2] The USPS is obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. The USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked "U.S. Mail" and personal letterboxes in the United States, but still competes against private package delivery services, such as UPS and FedEx."
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
"The United States Postal Service (also known as USPS, the Post Office or U.S. Mail) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.
The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The cabinet-level Post Office Department was created in 1792 from Franklin's operation and transformed into its current form in 1971 under the Postal Reorganization Act.
The USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. Revenue has been in freefall due to declining mail volume.[3] The postal service has attempted to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to reduce its budget deficit.[4]
The USPS employs over 596,000 workers and over 218,000 vehicles, and if it were a civilian company, it would be the second-largest employer in the United States after Wal-Mart, and the operator of the largest vehicle fleet in the world.[2] The USPS is obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. The USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked "U.S. Mail" and personal letterboxes in the United States, but still competes against private package delivery services, such
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