USPS raises postage price AGAIN

[Dukkha]

http://www.usps.com/prices/pricechanges.htm

On May 11 the price for a 1-ounce First-Class Mail stamp will increase from 42¢ to 44¢. Prices for other mailing services — Standard Mail, Periodicals, Package Services (including Parcel Post), and Extra Services — will also change. The average increase by class of mail is at or below the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Customers can use their Forever Stamps — regardless of when purchased — to mail 1-ounce letters after the price change, without the need for additional postage. Forever Stamps are widely available through Post Offices, commercial retail outlets such as grocery stores, and online.

Prices for mailing services will continue to adjust each May. Prices for most shipping services, including Express Mail and Priority Mail, were adjusted in January and will not change in May.

and they wonder why no one wants to use their service.

[ret5hd]

1. How much does UPS or Fed_Ex charge for a 1oz letter?

[ret5hd]

36. Paging Dukkha...paging Dukkha.

[jobycom]

2. And their service gets suckier every year. Remember when they were good?

They used to be the most effective government entity. I've seen more lost letters, inexplicably delayed letters, and destroyed mail in the last two years than ever before. Over the last year they've lost at least one check a month in our mailings, and we only mail between three and four hundred items.

And at least in Austin their post offices have become a joke. They've cut back hours, cut out late mail pickups at their boxes, and cut back staff so far that there's always a line, and often lines resembling the old Christmas rushes every afternoon.

And we need to pay more? With gas prices half what they were last year? I think the Postmaster General must be related to George Bush or Bud Selig.

Sorry for the rant. I've been pissed off lately. They got me chewed out at work until I could prove I'd mailed a check recently.

[Blue_Tires]

5. i agree there has been a decrease in the quality

of service and how the customer is treated -- (but I think a little, and realize that's just about everyplace I spend money)....too many cutbacks and layoffs?

[City Lights]

7. I've noticed a big decline in service also.

Opened mail resealed in plastic bags, and mail delivered to the wrong address are the ones I see most often. One time I put an incorrectly-delivered piece of mail back into my box and put up the flag. The mail carrier took it and delivered it right back to my home the next day. I wonder how many pieces of my mail are delivered to the wrong address that never make it back to me.

[Urban Prairie]

13. Mail is read

By automated sorting machinery and computers with optical character readers, they look for a barcode first, a zip-code second, and and address/city/state LAST. Very little mail is sorted by hand, and the carriers are NOT allowed to do anything but to deliver the already route-sorted mail that arrives in the AM at their post office, by their processing center. If the barcode, zipcode or address is incorrect, it will continue to go to the wrong address until a human catches the error and corrects the zipcode or address AND completely marks out the barcode or covers it over with correction tape. The latter must be done or the letter will continue to be mis-delivered.

[RebelOne]

17. I have had that problem with my mail carriers.

Once my license tag sticker was delivered to my next-door neighbors. They were out of town and I drove around with an expired tag for a week until they returned and brought it to me. And a few weeks ago, I received a letter addressed to another neighbor from the IRS.

[TuxedoKat]

15. YES! They were great in the late '70s then

Reagan got elected and the service went downhill fast considerably. The service had kept getting better and better throughout the '60s and '70s. I remember because my mom was a big time letter writer and she would remark on how fast she would receive letters from her mom or other people way across the country in just 2-3 days. I remember myself mailing things at 500PM just regular first class mail in the DC area to a rural place in MD or VA and they would be received the next day! Then Reagan came in and overnight mail got introduced and everyone realized they could charge an arm and a leg for overnight or two day service and the service has never been and probably never will be the same again.

Now the attitude from USPS seems to be that they are doing you a favor to mail your letters and packages. Not the employees so much, but the USPS as an organization. Individually, the employees are pretty nice for the most part. I remember talking to one USPS employee years ago, about a year or two after Reagan was elected and he was lamenting the fact about how good USPS used to be and how bad they were now.

[FSogol]

3. 44 cents is a bargain. Nowhere else in the world is the mail so cheap.

If it really bothers you, buy a big stash of "Forever stamps" and save them.

Prices increase. What else has only gone up 2 cents in the last year?

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

4. Here in Germany it costs around 55 cents (euro) to send a normal letter

Kinda sucks

[trotsky]

6. Exactly what I was going to say.

I didn't know just how good we have it here with the USPS until I interacted with postal systems in different countries. I honestly don't know how the USPS manages to be SO inexpensive and SO reliable.

[TuxedoKat]

22. I agree they are good and reliable but

they were great back in the late '70s (see my other message above). We are definitely lucky to have such a cheap, reliable system, especially compared to some other countries where mail is routinely opened, stolen or never delivered.

[jobycom]

34. At least in my city, they are becoming extremely unreliable.

Just a few years ago when someone would tell you that a check was lost in the mail, you'd know they were lying. Nowadays it's assumed they are telling the truth. I've had this conversation with a lot of businesses in town (Austin), and in a nearby town (San Antonio). There is a very noticable decline in reliability. There was even a news story a year ago hear about how many letters were getting lost from the main distribution center in Austin, and some official with the PO came out and said they'd had a faulty machine but had replaced it. But the problem hasn't changed.

Maybe it's better in other places, but here the engine has started to sputter, the exhaust smokes, the frame shakes, and it's too obvious to be attributed to a things-were-better-in-the-old-days mentality.

[AlCzervik]

8. i always buy forever stamps, not that i mail lots of things but it's just easy to buy

those even tough they might cost a little more.

[elizfeelinggreat]

9. Is this correct?

I'm looking at this page (found at link) on page 11

http://pe.usps.com/PriceChange_May2009/PDF/PriceList/PriceList.pdf

for the price for commercial bulk mail.
It looks like it is five cents per piece on that bottom line?
Sorry the formatting is off, I'm not sure how to fix that but at the link it's clear.

IMO we could certainly cut down on how much junk mail they have to carry around and devote their time to, or make that part of their work more profitable.


Standard Mail Regular
COMMERCIAL LETTERS—ENHANCED CARRIER ROUTE & AUTOMATION
Entry Discount Enhanced Carrier Route (ECR)1,2 Automation2
Saturation High Density Basic 5-Digit 3-Digit AADC Mixed AADC
Letters weighing 3.3 oz. or less
None $0.182 $0.193 $0.262 $0.233 $0.251 $0.253 $0.270
DBMC 0.148 0.159 0.228 0.199 0.217 0.219 0.236
per piece price DSCF 0.139 0.150 0.219 0.190 0.208 0.210 ---
DDU --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
more than 3.3 oz.3 None 0.609 0.649 0.696 0.725 0.725 0.725 0.725
per pound price
DBMC 0.446 0.486 0.533 0.562 0.562 0.562 0.562
DSCF 0.401 0.441 0.488 0.517 0.517 0.517 ---
DDU --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
+ + + + + + + +
per piece price 0.0564 0.0594 0.1184 0.0834 0.1014 0.1034 0.1204

[bobbert]

30. bulk mail is way different

It has to be sorted out in the correct bins and taken directly to the loading docs for mailing. The post office does very little with junk mail except deliver it directly to the door. The post office makes a ton of money off of them and really can't afford to lose their business.

[Peace Patriot]

10. No, no, no, no, NO! This is going to kill every small mail order business in the country!

Many are hanging on by the thinnest of threads, after the gas gouging last year. UPS, for instance, jacked up its shipping prices, but they haven't brought them back down, with lower gas prices. Small businesses have thin margins anyway, and, in case you didn't know, small business is the biggest employer in the country.

This is very, very, VERY BAD!

[high density]

19. Overal UPS prices are down

The base rate increased slightly in January, but the fuel surcharge is way, way down from what it once was. Mail order businesses should be fine, since most of their shipments are going to be over 13oz and will be shipped Priority Mail if they use the USPS at all. Those rates already changed last month.

[Orrex]

23. That's great news!

So it'll only cost $9.99 to send this document vis UPS for second-day delivery, instead of $0.44 for USPS? Excellent!

[high density]

24. So ship your documents with USPS?

Duh?

[Orrex]

25. Duh?

That was kind of my point. Everyone who complains about the outrageous $0.44 charge for sending a letter via USPS has clearly never tried to send that same letter for the same price via FedEx or UPS.

[high density]

28. OK, but that's the OP or somebody else complaining, not me.

Thanks.

[Orrex]

40. Whoop! I apologize for misdirected snark

:blush:

[snooper2]

11. They should go ahead and make it an even dollar...

And give the postmasters a raise...

Fuck- a dollar to mail a letter from New York to L.A.

What a deal- stop the bitching

[suston96]

12. Should be 50 cents. It's still a bargain to get a letter from here to there in a few days.....nt

[Orrex]

14. Yeah! Postage should be free forever! And the postmaster should pay my bills, too!

It kills me when people gripe about the meager cost of mail when you consider the actual service you're getting.

If someone can propose a better method of delivering the same volume of original paper documents in the same time frame, I'd love to hear it.

[high density]

16. Get accustomed to annual increases

They're going to up their prices every year just like UPS and FedEx do.

[Orrex]

21. No, not at all like UPS and FedEx do

The same document sent via USPS for $0.44 will still cost $30.00 less than if you sent it by FedEx.


Why does anyone think that the Post Office should be immune to market pressures and cost increases? What kind of pollyanna Shangri-La do you live in that lets you mail stuff for free?

[high density]

27. Yes, like UPS and FedEx do

...as in changing their prices every year. Unlike FedEx and UPS, the increases for First Class Mail are limited to the consumer price index.

[Orrex]

18. On the bright side, healthcare costs have dropped significantly

Oh wait--no they haven't.

It's absurd to gripe about a two-cents-per-ounce increase when this is, in fact, the very least of our economic concerns. I'm still waiting for someone to offer an alternative means of getting this document to that recipient across the country in two days for $0.44. Fed Ex? UPS? Private courier?

[yella_dawg]

20. The post office is efficient and reliable.

Forty four cents to have an item delivered to any door in America. Sweet deal if you ask me.

[ladywnch]

31. my mom just paid $10 to ship Priority Mail to me last Tuesday

the package still hasn't arrived ......apparently lost.....along with my 1099's she enclosed with the shirts. :-(

[sandyj999]

26. Okay so it's partly my fault.

I am one of those people that pay all my bills online except for three of them. I figured that I am NOT using about 8-10 stamps a month any longer. And I know a lot of people that are the same so there goes a lot of income for the postal service. Same with the check printers.

[ozu]

29. Online bill payments

and email have cut my personal usage of snail mail to less than 10 times a year, or about the price equivalent of a Starbucks coffee.

Their service is incredibly cheap for what they provide.

[Postman]

32. I'm a postal worker.

Are there inefficiencies in the USPS? Yes. Is that reason enough to "privatize" the system? No.

What do you want, free mail service? The cost the mailing public pays to have mail delivered, to their door in most cases, is for the most part cost effective.

The problem is conservative ideology that has permeated American society since Reagan. Should the postal infrastructure of the United States be considered part of "the commons", as Thom Hartmann would describe democratically run societies? Or should it be run like a corporation, with its main focus being the profit motive and all the drawbacks that that entails (closing unprofitable rural offices and routes etc.,)?

Another aspect of cost to the public is the fact that huge bulk mailers get price breaks on their mailings that the public eventually subsidizes through rate hikes....make the large bulk mailers pay their fair share...

Why didn't Congress include in the auto industry loan package or the current "stimulus" bill a provision in order to get taxpayer help, Detroit had to replace the US Postal Service delivery fleet with plug-in electrics, thus relieving a huge financial burden off the USPS in the form of fuel costs? This would have been a great shot in the arm for US manufacturing putting people to work immediately, kick started the movement away from fossil fuel driven vehicles in a huge way...

[elizfeelinggreat]

35. "make the large bulk mailers pay their fair share..."

Thank you for your point of view.

This was the point of my post (#9). I do not believe that they do and we don't need to subsidize EVERY business nor do we need all that waste.

[SLadd]

38. I'm a postal worker too

That's right Mr. Postman, but folks don't understand it because they don't work in a post office. What could easily happen, soon, is the end of the postal service. Then we'll see what citizens think about it. People in rural areas will be charged a fortune by private companies for minimum mail delivery, IF they deliver it. And free street delivery will be gone. People always tell me that they deserve free street delivery because they pay for stamps. But those who rent P.O. Boxes also pay for stamps. Do folks really think a corporation would continue to deliver mail free to every house in the country? And as for the "quality of service" going downhill. Try working in an office that's so understaffed that much needed attention to office tasks is sacrificed just to make sure that at least one clerk is at the window. Those long lines are due to lack of workers, not lazy workers. And those clerks who stand there all day often don't get their 10 minute breaks, or sometimes even lunch, because there is nobody to relieve them. And behind the scenes, the postmaster or supervisor is on everybody's ass , threatening discipline if "numbers aren't met." 44 cents for a letter? What else can you get for that? Not even a pack of gum. Americans have become so spoiled with their postal service that they think they deserve it. It's fast approaching the end, if you have been reading the news, you'll know that an 150 year era is nearly over. A letter should be at least 50 or 60 cents, and be raised with the rest of our products. You think it's easy to do mailing online? How about when the electrical power in this country comes to a stop? Whose going to deliver your letters and bills then? And another thing, the postal service isn't funded by the government, and hasn't been since 1970; we're not paid with tax dollars. We're dependent on the sale of stamps and sevices, period. However we're regulated by the government, which doesn't allow the postal service to compete with other agencies in the market without first begging Congress for a stupid 2 penny raise. I've been a letter carrier for 24 years, and it's a gut-busting job; it takes a toll of body and mind. And finally, I'd like to dispel another myth: all dogs bite! It's what they are made to do.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

33. Since the beginning of the year, they have already raised the price on parcels and International

mail.

[Urban Prairie]

37. Working for the USPS

Used to be an enjoyable job, until management introduced automated sorting technology that has almost completely removed the human element to handling letters, packages, and parcels. Unless one works for them above the manual labor level, it is a thankless, tedious, timed, and boring job. Carriers no longer spend much time in their post offices hand-sorting mail, they mostly deliver, collect, and go home. The USPS is also working with robotics and conveyors to create processing centers with little need for human involvement, other than maintenance and repair crews.

The conservative Heritage Foundation amongst others, is pushing for privatization of the USPS, if people think that the cost of mailing a letter parcel, or package is too expensive now, if they are successful in their privatization efforts, the costs of shipping via ANY company will go up into the stratosphere.

[Postman]

39. The USPS should be a part of "the commons"

Something that "we the people" own and operate.

Privatizing the USPS means turning it into a corporation. That means the profit motive becomes job one, not service to the public. That means the focus is on the Stock price, that means the mailing public will be paying for the corporate jets, CEO salaries, the expensive art work in the headquarters bldg, the gold plated garbage cans, etc., etc... is that what the people want to be paying for when they go to put that stamp on their letter?

Profit motive should not be the driving factor in organizations that are there to serve the public good.

I say the USPS should stop trying to be like corporate America and should be a responsibility of the taxpayer, again.

There is waste in the USPS. No doubt about it. But that's because the USPS has been removed, by and large, away from being the responsibility of the public, the taxpayer. Its a quasi public/private entity. It doesn't operate on taxpayer dollars and any profit it does make is required to go back into the Federal Treasury.

Like anything else, if the public feels the pain of the cost of society, they will make sure that things are run efficiently. As long as there is this conservative ideology that everything must be run like a business then there is going to be waste, fraud and abuse....

I know people don't like to pay taxes. But taxes are the cost of living in a civil society. The problem is that the taxes we do pay are going to things we see no benefit from...like useless, unnecessary wars and bloated "defense" budgets that serve no purpose of "defense" but serve a great purpose of lining the pockets of political campaign donors....

[rcrush]

41. I hate trying to tell the difference between new and old stamps

I still get returned mail cause I have old stamps lying around. I'm gonna just do online bill pay from now on.