It now costs 82 cents to send a letter by First-Class mail after the U.S. Postal Service raised the price of a Forever stamp by 4 cents on Sunday as it tries to turn around its finances.
The price of a domestic postcard went up by 4 cents to 65 cents. International postcards cost $1.75, up 5 cents.
The Postal Service in early April notified the public of the planned price increase, which was approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The nation’s postal operator is $31 billion in debt and faces a liquidity crisis as soon as 2031 amid declining mail volumes in a digital world, rising costs and federal constraints while still required to deliver to every address. Postmaster General David Steiner said the agency has amassed $120 billion in net losses since 2007 and needs Congress’s help removing outdated restrictions that prevent it from restructuring. Management has staved off operating cuts for the time being by temporarily suspending employer retirement contributions and streamlining network operations.
Steiner has previously testified that he thinks Americans would be willing to pay up to 95 cents per letter, which would still be cheaper than in most industrialized countries.
Keep US Posted, an advocacy group of consumers, nonprofits, newspapers, greeting card publishers, magazines and catalogs, has criticized the postage increase, saying the Postal Service has a cost problem, not a revenue problem. It points out that stamp prices have gone up 44% over the past 15 years and rates for other mail products have risen even more. It wants Congress to limit USPS rate hikes to once per year and cap them to the rise of the Consumer Price Index.
The latest change raised stamp prices 4.8%.
Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.
Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.
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