The independent panel that oversees the U.S. Postal Service has denied the agency's request to increase the cost of mailing a letter by 2 cents — to 46 cents.
The Postal Regulatory Commission announced its decision rejecting the requested price hike at a news conference Thursday.
In July, the Postal Service proposed raising first-class postage from 44 cents to 46 cents as part of a strategy for dealing with a worsening financial crisis. The Postal Service lost $3.8 billion last year, and the agency has been seeking other rate increases as well, including higher fees for periodicals, post cards and parcels.
The new rates would have taken effect next Jan. 2.
Chairman Ruth Goldway told reporters at a news conference that the Postal Rate Commission's vote to deny the rate request was unanimous on the five-member commission.
She said she believes that the requested rate adjustment is not because of the recent recession, as Postal Service officials have indicated, but was, rather, an attempt to address long-term structural problems.
More details
The Postal Regulatory Commission announced its decision rejecting the requested price hike at a news conference Thursday.
In July, the Postal Service proposed raising first-class postage from 44 cents to 46 cents as part of a strategy for dealing with a worsening financial crisis. The Postal Service lost $3.8 billion last year, and the agency has been seeking other rate increases as well, including higher fees for periodicals, post cards and parcels.
The new rates would have taken effect next Jan. 2.
Chairman Ruth Goldway told reporters at a news conference that the Postal Rate Commission's vote to deny the rate request was unanimous on the five-member commission.
She said she believes that the requested rate adjustment is not because of the recent recession, as Postal Service officials have indicated, but was, rather, an attempt to address long-term structural problems.
More details
3 comments:
the USPS needs a restructuring from the top down. In 2007 the Postmaster General's base salary was 186K, in 2008 that base pay went up to 260K. On top of that he recieved a "performance" bonus of 135K, with a total compensation of more then 850K. All while the service he is supposed to run was awash in debt.
Anyone who happens to accidently walk into a Post Office knows the drill, it happens to be very similar to the DMV or other gov't agencies.
Fire these big executives and lower the postage rates and maybe it can operate efficiently. The rising cost are why they are losing business cause we are using the internet. DuH!
Also, another thing to add. I know many people in business, something that has been brought up is the lack of sunday(and soon to be saturday) deliveries. All this will do, is encourage businesses to use other courier services. Further eroding the customer base for the USPS. We live in a 24/7/365 society. This is not 1940
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