The Inflation Reduction Act also granted the Postal Service $3 billion to electrify its fleet of delivery trucks.Ĭritics of the price increases say continued price increases harm the Postal Service's financial stability. Legislation passed in 2022 wiped $107 billion in past-due and future liabilities off the agency's balance sheet. The Postal Service is not likely to hit those milestones, those it's received significant financial help from Congress. In 2024, it is supposed to be modestly profitable. In 2023, according to his projections, the mail service is supposed to break even. The Postal Service posted a $1.03 billion loss in the final quarter of 2022, putting the agency behind DeJoy's plan to make up a $160 billion projected budget shortfall by 2030. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Revenue from parcels includes contracts with express shipping and e-commerce firms - including Amazon, the Postal Service's largest customer - that send their items through the mail. First-class, business mail and periodicals made up close to $41 billion of the agency's 2022 revenue, according to its annual report to Congress, compared to $31.3 billion from packages. Postal finance officials also have blamed persistent inflation for increasing the agency's costs and depressing consumer spending.īut higher rates threaten to drive away the paper mail business that keeps the Postal Service's finances afloat. "As operating expenses fueled by inflation continue to rise and the effects of a previously defective pricing model are still being felt, these price adjustments are needed to provide the Postal Service with much needed revenue to achieve the financial stability," the agency wrote in a news release. Sending mail in the United States is still cheaper than in nearly any country in the developed world. The price increases are part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's turnaround of the mail agency, which was facing hundreds of billions of dollars in unpayable liabilities when he took office in June 2020.Ī year later, the Postal Service said it would increase rates twice annually, making up for what it said were years' worth of artificially low rates.
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