Keep US Posted Warns About Impact of Another Postal Rate Hike on July 9 (piworld.com)
Keep US Posted — a nonprofit advocacy group of consumers, nonprofits, newspapers, greeting card publishers, magazines, catalogs and small businesses — is warning Americans that stamp prices are set to increase on July 9 for the second time in 2023, and cautioning that if such unprecedented and excessive postage increases continue, Americans could be facing a government bailout of the U.S. Postal Service. The July increase marks the third such increase in 12 months — the most mailing rates have increased during the U.S. Postal Service’s 247-year history.
“If you don’t have Forever stamps, now is a good time to stock up,” said Keep US Posted Executive Director and former Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kans.). “With three unprecedented postage hikes in 12 months, USPS has kicked off runaway ‘stampflation’ like the U.S. has never seen, and it’s making the situation worse. Each time stamp prices go up, mail volume goes down at an even faster pace than projected, and meanwhile, USPS faces more internal costs updating its system to implement each postage increase. For example, after January’s rate increase went into effect, mail volume immediately decreased nearly 9% year-over-year, while expenses increased by 16%.”
Yoder continued, “DeJoy’s stated intent has been to use stamp increases to bring in additional revenue, yet each hike drives down mail demand at a progressively faster rate and increases internal costs, meaning less revenue for USPS, no matter how much more a stamp costs. The result is additional strain on the system. Congress passed bipartisan postal reform in 2022 intending to prevent these excessive postage increases by bringing financial solvency to the Postal Service but USPS, under DeJoy’s leadership, has plowed ahead with pre-planned stamp increases, which will continue every six months. The American people need Congress to step in now and bring additional oversight to the USPS rate strategy, otherwise we could be looking at a situation where a federal bailout is necessary.”
more at: https://www.piworld.com/article/keep-us-posted-warns-another-stamp-hike-july-9/