Actually they borrow the money, usually from the government.

Can't argue that they are in debt, but they did have quite a few profitable years.

Part of the reason for the debt is restrictions that are placed on them by congress.

Such as stopping the closing of very small post offices.

And we still have 6 day delivery although USPS proposed going to 5 days.

And delivery to some areas so remote the carrier uses a boat. Or drives 50 miles to make 5 deliveries. Most other carriers either stop those types of delivery or charge a surcharge. Congress has not allowed surcharges for the postal service.

BTW, at one time the postal service had over 900,000 employees.

Unfortunately they are a "kinda" government agency with many governmental restrictions.

I understand that the USPS doesn't want to include the cost for retiree pensions and health insurance in their operating budget, but this is a huge current and future expense that obviously should be counted in their budget. But, the point is, they deliver junk mail every day to almost every address in the country because they don't charge enough to pay for the actual cost. And, the taxpayers end up paying the cost and having to deal with junk in their mailbox every day. I think this absurd and should be stopped.

The topic of this thread is Informed Delivery. If you wish to discuss the funding of the USPS, or its budget decisions, please start a new thread. Future off optic posts will be deleted..

Moderator

I think if you owned a similar business you might look at this differently. The carrier is making the delivery everyday so why not have some less expensive advertising mail at the same time? Here is something I posted once before, to help you better understand "junk" mail:

You should sign up for the services that take you off of "junk" mail lists. The postal service is getting paid by the sender to deliver the mail, not by you. They are just doing what they get paid to do.

Also, keep in mind that advertisers only expect a 3-4% response on a direct mailing. So if they mail to 1000 people, you and 965 other people are tossing the ad.

One last thing, from the US Postal Service 2016 Fiscal Year Statement - tax dollars received: $ 0.


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New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida