Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail Delivery
The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says.
In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August.
The move accentuates one of the agency’s strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.
Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages — and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. Though an independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
It was not immediately clear how the service could eliminate Saturday mail without congressional approval.
But the agency clearly thinks it has a majority of the American public on its side regarding the change.
Material prepared for the Wednesday press conference by Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general and CEO, says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
Confused
Hmmm… They don’t deliver Sundays… now cutting out Shabbos. Was an extra day added to the week that will enable them to do a six-day mail deliver schedule while not delivering on either Shabbos or Sunday?
Ezra
Packages will still be delivered on Shabbos. Mail won’t.
it's about time!
they should have done this a long time ago
and at the same time they should praise their polite and organized staff and discipline those staff members that are horrifically rude
Doug Cohenson
gr8
wondering
OMG I WAS THERE IN THE SENATE WHEN THEY CAME UP WITH THE IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hahahaahaah
freshieeeeees woooohooo!!!
declasse' intellectual
This is and was a case of the Postal Setrvice shooting it self–you know where– through its administrative gross mismanagement, the unions, the workers and the problem of being a government agency. I can–other people can as well– tell horror stories of the we lost the mail and we do not deliver postal service. This is just the first steps downwards for the service.