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Cuts: By This Fall You Won’t Be Getting Your Saturday Mail Anymore

Feb. 6, 2013 7:56am Jonathon M. Seidl

Postal Service to Trim Saturday Mail Delivery to Cut Costs

This photo taken July 27, 2012 shows a mailbox outside a US Post Office in Lawrence, Mich. Credit: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says.

In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August.

The move accentuates one of the agency’s strong points – package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.

Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.

Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages – and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. Though an independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.

It was not immediately clear how the service could eliminate Saturday mail without congressional approval.

But the agency clearly thinks it has a majority of the American public on its side regarding the change.

Material prepared for the Wednesday press conference by Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general and CEO, says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.

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Comments (95)

Gunnett
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 7:52pm
Why Saturday? That is the one day of the week that I can get to the Post Office, why not make it Monday, which also happens to be the same day they closed on for many US holidays. Now, they will get reward with more 3 days weekends, instead of doing their job.

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Mhallier23
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 6:59pm
So is it OK for the Postmaster General to get his 1 million dollar bonus while cutting middle class jobs?

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Mhallier23
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 6:54pm
Does anyone think about all of the other jobs created with the USPS besides the postal workers? you have contract drivers that transport the mail, the trucks are serviced by PRIVATE sector garages…what about all of the magazines that are delivered? They are published and produced by the private sector. Can you mail a letter for 2 quarters with UPS or FEDEX? The answer is no. Why do you think UPS and FEDEX pay the USPS to deliver packages to areas where they cannot make a profit? This will not only have an effect on postal employees but many other private sector employees as well.

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DefyTYRANNY
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:54pm
Shut this money hole down and privatize the Mail system already. Like the GOP and America as our fathers and grandfathers knew it, the US Postal service is done. Baked. Way overdue for retirement.

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watashbuddyfriend
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 4:13pm
Now, hear this: Saturday residental mail delivery, should not be the first to be cut, MUST cut ALL Junk Mail, first!

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wildfirenh
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 4:12pm
The post office is a complete waste of tax dollars, they are not able to deliver mail (most of which is junk mail) and break even, let alone make a small profit. Most of this is due to pentions. Put them all on social security with the rest of the govement slugs and you will find social security being important to our overlords. And if they can’t at least break even the first year let them go out of business.

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Arshloch
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:10pm
That’s what too much pension, perks and a union can do for you.

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Patriot72
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 3:01pm
A couple of posts have made interesting references to the junk mail we all receive far too much of and it prompted a question in my mind.

If the Post Office moves to a regular mail 5-day schedule, maintains the 6-day parcel/package schedule and goes to a 1-day mass mail delivery schedule, how more time efficient can the 4 days with no junk mail be if all of the postal detritus is filtered out? Pile it all up and do it only once per week.

Every one of those flyers/informationals/coupon thingies takes up space, adds crazy amounts of weight to the manual deliverers (adding proportional fuel consumption by the vehicles) and each has to be added into the individual mailboxes throughout the country. Let the Post Office take advantage of the economies of scale on the biggest of the bulk deliveries. They need to be able to save a $1 anywhere they can.

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texasderek
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:46pm
It’s about time they cut this day out of the week. We did not have Saturday mail years ago and everything was fine.

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tckid17
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:23pm
Typical government, raise fees and reduce service.

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LETSBEABOUTIT
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 12:59pm
I think we should do away with the post office all together. Hard to say that to all the employees. They wouldn’t all be picked up by other delivery companies. But there are delivery companies out there making money, Fedex, UPS, etc. Of course, we would all loose our junk mail. Sigh. Life is hard. But those items that really have to be delivered to your house on paper can be delivered. The cost will be higher though but that just insures whatever is delivered is really worth the expense.

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- Mhallier23
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 7:09pm
  First of all, the USPS was created as a CUSTOMER SERVICE ORGANIZATION. Second, the last thing on the USPS managements mind is customer service…its all about making reports look good for the district managers. Third, UPS and FED EX pay the USPS to deliver packages that they can’t make money on. So to everyone who wants to bash the USPS get the facts straight before you go on an anti government rant. I am as conservative as they come but I also realize that the purpose of the USPS is to provide a service to the people at a price lower than UPS or FED EX.
  
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NumberOneSon
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 12:23pm
You Brainiacs who extoll the virtures of FED EX and UPS do realize that they rely heavily on the USPS to deliver thier product and that in many places; particularly rural areas…the USPS delivers their packages?….Eliminating the USPS would drive up the price of package delivery to “Heartland” Americans a fairly significant amount.

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- LETSBEABOUTIT
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:01pm
  The free market could adjust for this. Probably in ways neither of us can think of right this minute.
  
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- Mhallier23
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 7:16pm
  99.9 % of people have no clue how prices would jump if the USPS is gone…
  
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who_it_is
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 11:49am
GOOD!!!!!!! I only go to my mailbox once a week anyways.

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Captain Howdy
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 11:42am
Doesn’t include PO box mail? Don’t care. I’ll still have to sit at the office for four hours just to do my end of day scans. Just to inform some of you people, the USPS is probably the least efficient government organization in existence. I would rather relive the invasion of Iraq for 30 years than retire from the USPS. That is if I could even get a career position, the USPS is trying its best to cut all career jobs and make everyone contract employees. There are too many supervisors, most of whom are incompetent and engage in petty rivalries with each other. Most Postmasters are also ill-trained in their job and have no sense of leadership. Just in the one year I have been a USPS contract employee (a PSE, which is basically a grunt), I have seen so many ways the USPS could cut costs. Just by trimming management and their precious bonuses the USPS could save billions. The biggest reason the USPS is in the shape it’s in is because it does not focus on customer service. Customer service is almost an afterthought to many of the supervisors I have had to work with. The USPS deserves what it’s going through.

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Shrugged
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 10:55am
Let’s not stop with the Postal Service, How about we shut down all government for at least one day per week and cut pay and budgets accordingly. We should be shooting for a minimum of a 20% immediate reduction in government size and cost.

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myptofvu
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 10:53am
NO!!! If you are cutting service then cut the price of stamps. You are diminishing service but not the fees you charge. Americans and future Americans should NOT have to pay for your poor management practices. The reason you have to so this is to pay for the ridiculous pension and benefit programs you established in the past. GO BANKRUPT like a company should, clear out your previous mistakes and THEN cut service and the fees you charge if needed. DO NOT expect others to continually pay for YOUR mistakes. I hope a competent lawyer gets a hold of this and institutes a Class Action Law Suit against charging for services you’re not providing just to cover your previous mismanagement.

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Tigress1
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:44am
Big whoop.

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rockymtngal
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:35am
All I can say is that if I worked for a business that operated in the red for as long as the P.O. has, the doors would’ve been closed already. We cannot keep up with Obama’s spending and we cannot support yet another gov’t agency that is drowning in debt. It doesn’t matter if the P.O. doesn’t deliver mail on Saturday or raise the cost of postage: it’s a dismal failure. Like Obama, they will con’t to spend money they don’t have.

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avguy69
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:33am
Sometimes people don’t think of the wide sweeping repercussions of cutting GOV jobs. When you look at how many people work in those areas, and the many other support jobs that feed into those jobs. If we cut those jobs what have we really done to the economy?

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ackmack
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:32am
It’s been a while since business school, so let me see if I understand. A business is losing sales, customers, and lots of money. So, the solution is to increase the price and announce a reduction in the quality of its service, all in the same week! It would be replacement time for the CEO in the private sector! Imagine if a large auto manufacturer decided to build a car that no one wanted at a price that no one would pay…asked for a government subsidy (just like the post office) and still no one wanted to buy it…so the company decides to increase production anyway…and move manufacturing to China. That could never happen…could it?

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kaydeebeau
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:30am
so how is this supposed to save money ? The same sorters will be working, the same trucks will be out delivering pkgs but now the sorters will have to take the letters out and put them in a separate area to be sorted again for Monday delivery?

Somehow I don’t see how this will actually work the way it is described. Oh wait gov’t and unions – of course it won’t work the way they say it will

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oldsoldier10
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:26am
who the hell cares? all i ever get in my mail box is dominos adds and insurance offers, all my banking is done via the interweb interluding my statement. This cut to the postal system will be a racist move as every post office employee in NC and SC I ever see is black with manicure fingernail extensions or a freak show mustache. How the hell they gonna pay for they Uboma phones wif no job. I bought a 3d printer and now i print my own currency, in a catch 22 maneuver.

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Blazen420
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:15am
It ain’t gonna help. The problem is not Saturday mail delivery….Although I agree that they should stop Saturday mail. I know a 52 yr old woman who just retired from the Postal Dept. How on earth can a 52 yr old person be retiring? The Postal Dept is offering buy outs to some employees who qualify and she qualified. So their problem is all the former employees out there that are still suck’n off the tit, and their answer to the problem is to offer buyouts and put more people on the tit?

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jungle J
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:07am
privatize…do the sane thing.

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cknapp
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 8:55am
I am 51 and wonder when I “moved” to a third world country? We can no longer launch a man into space, the Post Office is proposing delivering only packages on Saturday (I agree the Post Office is a bit antiquated these days, I actually do not recieve anything I need from the Post Office), a population that thinks 8 percent unemplyment is OK (and when you ask them what a nominal rate of unemployment is they have no idea it should be around 4 percent, allowing for turn-over, etc), people I worked with in 2008 who did not know who Reverend Jeremiah Wright was or who Bill Ayers was and his t3rrorist past.

I am not the smartest guy around but I read somewhere that knowledge is a constant….the population continues to rise!

Craig Knapp
Age 50
anonymous posting is for wimps
craig dit knapp1 et yahee dit cam

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- oldsoldier10
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:28am
  we sunk to a third world country on 20 Jan 2009, think about it.
  
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