In the July 2010 edition of the PCC Insider (a USPS publication) is found the following statement:
There are 26,000 Post Offices with expenses that exceed revenue. The Postal Service is asking for legislative and regulatory change that would give us the authority to close these Post Offices.
My first thought, knowing roughly how many ZIP codes there are in the US (42,073 as of June), was, “my, that seems like an awful lot of them.” As can be expected of most “statistics” that you get from most media sources, though, they didn’t bother to include that number.
So, off I go to Wikipedia, and then to the USPS site itself, to verify numbers. There are 36,400 “postal locations” nationwide, according to the USPS. It’s not clear if all of those are included in the comparison above, but it can be considered to be the high end.
In other words, reading literally, the postal service has asked for authority to close seven out of every ten post offices (possibly more). It’s possible that they meant to include “some of” in the quote above, but they didn’t, and that may very well be intentional.
It’s an interesting thought. It would certainly reduce their expenses. And how many people actually go to the post office?
Well, me, for one. A lot. But at the rate I buy stamps, whatever post office I frequent is not likely to be losing more money than it’s making. So, let’s ignore that for now.
It’s also worth noting that they shouldn’t need to close seven out of ten post offices in order to only have profitable post offices, since the ones that remain open would likely gain at least some of the sales from the closed post offices. But, let’s ignore that for now as well, and just take this at face value.
For most letters, going to the post office isn’t necessary. You can get stamps at quite a number of grocery stores and office supply stores, and that number could be increased. You can also give outgoing mail to your carrier, who is already coming to your house (or general area, at least) six days a week (soon to be five, in all likelihood). Or use one of the many dropboxes that are all over the place. We’re not talking about any change to the delivery/pick-up schedule.
For packages, it’s a little trickier, but not too hard. With flat-rate packages, you don’t need a scale. Just buy the stamp or print postage online, stick your lead bricks in the box, apply the postage, and give it to your carrier, or drop it in a mailbox. The boxes themselves could be picked up from the same place you get the stamps. Or they could be ordered online, and delivered by the carrier.
For non-flat-rate packages, you’ll do the same thing you do for UPS or FedEx — there’s usually one in your general area, or the USPS could contract with an office supply store to handle the package pickup for them (I’m pretty sure they can already legally do this, it just doesn’t make sense when they have post offices all over the place). Most people don’t send packages regularly, anyway, so it can be more inconvenient than it is without most people really noticing more than once or twice a year (mostly around Christmas). People who do send packages regularly can buy a scale (or the USPS could have a loyalty program that has a scale as a “prize” for frequent mailers, if you want to avoid that issue).
PO Boxes are the other big thing. In rural areas, they’ll probably need to keep money-losing post offices around, in order to avoid losing even more money by having delivery service to every door (ending universal delivery isn’t up for discussion, as far as I can tell, and while PO Boxes don’t really count as universal delivery, I accept it as a concession, as one living in an area where it’s frequently done).
In other areas, it may be a matter of directing people to post offices that aren’t as close, partnering with another company to provide PO Boxes in a store (no real estate costs or on-site employees needed), or just ending the service if it’s not profitable.
This may very well be an effective solution to the post office’s ongoing losses. We could have a profitable postal service, with no significant impact on postage cost and no significant inconvenience to consumers.
Oh, but there’s one problem. The post office has 596,000 full-time employees, plus an unspecified number of part-time employees. They pay over a billion dollars every week in salaries and benefits. What sort of effect do you think they’d have on the local and national economy if they were to close a majority of post offices in order to help them become profitable?
And, here’s the harder question: Is that their problem? Don’t answer too quickly.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the above. I don’t have comments turned on, but if you have a blog, write a response (I don’t care if you link to this post or not) and send me an E-Mail with a link to it, so I can read it. Or, if you’d prefer to respond in private, just send me an E-Mail (if you don’t know it, it’s my first name at this domain name).







