USPS Posts $3.1B Loss Ahead of New Chief's Tenure as Stamp Hikes, Delivery Delays Draw Fire

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17 hours ago

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) incurred $3.1 billion losses in its fiscal third quarter, the final period before new Postmaster General David Steiner took the helm at the courier.
In remarks to the USPS board of governors on Thursday, Steiner said the agency is 'on the right path,' highlighting growing volumes via the Ground Advantage parcel delivery offering, alongside improving on-time service performance.
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The latter has been a major subject of criticism since a wider network overhaul began taking shape, where mail processing is currently being streamlined across some 60 regional processing and delivery centers, causing delivery delays in some major metropolitan areas and rural areas alike.
Net losses widened from $2.5 billion in the year prior, with $1.6 billion of the current losses being controllable by management. The remaining $1.45 billion losses are fixed costs outside of current USPS control, including retiree pension contributions and workers' compensation claims for employees injured on the job.
Total operating revenue remained flat at $18.8 million.
Strategic price increases are narrowing losses for First-Class Mail, with revenue decreasing 1.4 percent to $5.8 billion on a 5.4 percent volume decline to 9.9 billion pieces. Similarly, shipping and packages revenue from parcel delivery increased 0.8 percent to $7.8 billion, on a 6.5 percent volume decline to 1.6 billion pieces.
Steiner, who officially became Postmaster General on July 15, asserted that the beleaguered agency's 10-year Delivering for America plan installed by previous USPS head Louis DeJoy was a 'sound' strategy.
A former FedEx board member, Steiner said the modernization efforts have brought the Postal Service closer to private sector logistics practices.
'Both the pricing and product strategies have improved our competitiveness,' Steiner said. 'We will continue to aggressively pursue those strategies.'
At a congressional hearing in June, multiple industry stakeholders had agreed that public-private partnerships would help bolster USPS services and finances, but had largely called on Steiner and management to put the turnaround program on hold until a full reassessment was conducted.
Nonprofit advocacy group Keep US Posted is urging Steiner to pivot away from 'DeJoy's 'tax and spend' strategy,' namely to reject the plans implemented to hike rates and focus on packages over mail.
'While the Delivering for America plan promised to grow parcel volumes, lower costs and allow the Postal Service to break even by 2023, it lost $6.5 billion that fiscal year, and it continues to hemorrhage money,' said Keep US Posted executive director Kevin Yoder in a statement. 'Steiner should free the American public from DeJoy's disastrous decisions and pursue his own strategy to help USPS recover so that it can keep delivering to every American six-days per-week'
As the courier seeks ways to generate more revenue, the USPS board of governors urged the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) not to limit its ability to implement price hikes following criticism from Keep US Posted.
The regulator proposed a rule in June that would limit the Postal Service to only raising prices once per year.
The USPS already increased the price of a first-class Forever stamp from 73 cents to 78 cents on July 13 after skipping a hike in January, after raising them twice in 2024. In 2026 and 2027, the hikes will return at a twice-a-year pace.
With the agency at a high risk of running out of cash in recent years, the PRC opened USPS to setting mail prices higher than the rate of inflation in 2020. As such, stamp prices have skyrocketed. Since 2019, the Forever stamp's price has increased 56 percent from a then-50 cents.
Yoder said that with the latest increase, 'the situation will no doubt worsen and push even more mail from the system.'
Governor Ron Stroman, a former deputy postmaster general, said during the public board meeting Thursday that the PRC would be making a mistake to undercut their pricing decisions.
Stroman indicated that if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, the agency may decide to raise prices only once per year.
'Based on the data I have reviewed, I have concluded that twice-a-year price increases have maximized the Postal Service's revenue during the post-pandemic period of high inflation,' Stroman said. 'However, I can certainly envision future scenarios where we conclude that the factors we consider in exercising our business judgment weigh against a twice-a-year price increase.'
Keep US Posted shared its support for legislation introduced in May by Congressman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) that would give the PRC the power to stop stamp hikes.
The bill, called the USPS Services Enhancement and Regulatory Viability Expansion and Sustainability for the U.S. Act (or USPS SERVES US Act), would limit price increases to once per year, and institute other reforms aimed at ensuring accountability and efficiency across its delivery network. Under that legislation, the USPS would create an autonomous customer advocate office to hear Americans' concerns about the agency.