The price of a first-class stamp rose a penny on Sunday, to 46 cents, but the U.S. Postal Service is still operating at a deficit.
“We are currently losing $25 million per day,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said this month, according to NBC News. Last fiscal year, the agency lost nearly $16 billion — and it no longer has a line of credit with the U.S. Treasury Department.
The Postal Service could run out of money “between six months and a year at most,” if Congress does not act, Richard Geddes, associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University, told NBC.
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The Postal Service said keeping letters moving is its top priority, even if it means defaulting on its retirement benefit funds again.
“Although our liquidity situation remains a serious concern, the Postal Service is continuing to prioritize payments to ensure employees and suppliers are paid on time, preventing any interruption in our operations,” spokesman David Partenheimer, told NBC.
Still, Michael Crew, director of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries, and professor of regulatory economics at Rutgers University, told NBC: “There could be a period when mail is not being delivered.”
The Postal Service delivers mail six days a week to everyone in the nation who has been sent mail, and maintains as many as 32,000 post offices.
The post office wants to eliminate Saturday delivery, which Partenheimer said would save $2.7 billion a year, but it needs congressional approval to do so.
Congress has not granted that authority.
“Essentially, Congress has got to rethink the legislation that establishes the post office,” Crew told NBC.
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