The U.S. Postal Service, under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's 10-year financial plan, was projected to break even in fiscal year 2003, but it's reporting a $6.5 billion loss.
Under the plan, which DeJoy announced in 2021, the USPS was to reach its turning point in 2023 and to start turning a profit in 2024, but inflation and decreasing mail volume took their toll, CBS News reported.
DeJoy told the Postal Service Board of Governors on Tuesday that he is "not happy" with the latest financial results, blaming issues that were not accounted for in the plan's forecast.
"Our efforts to grow revenue and reduce labor and transportation costs were simply not enough to overcome our costs to stabilize our organization, the historical inflationary environment we encountered, and our inability to obtain the [Civil Service Retirement System] reform we sought," DeJoy said.
The plan had centered around postage hikes and slower delivery standards, which were seen as key to cutting costs and raising revenues, but those ideas were not popular with businesses and consumers.
According to the USPS report, released Tuesday, the service's revenue slipped by 0.4% to $78.2 billion, dropping by $321 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, compared to one year ago.
Last year, the USPS reported a net income of $56 billion, mainly because of a one-time, non-cash adjustment from the Postal Service Reform Act in 2022, that ended the mandate to pre-fund health benefits for retirees.
Meanwhile, mail volume dropped almost 9%, with the number of mailed items falling from 127 billion last year to 116 billion this year.
Some critics pointed to the string of postage rate hikes under DeJoy as the reason for the declining mail volume, including one group, Keep US Posted, which said the "unprecedented postage increases" harmed the USPS' finances.
"Twice-annual, above-inflation postage hikes are worsening the USPS' financial woes and trapping it in quicksand, as even more mail is driven out of the system," said Keep US Posted Executive Director Kevin Yoder, a former congressman representing Kansas.
Yoder's group represents businesses that rely on the postal service, such as magazines, greeting card companies, and catalog companies, and he said the losses show the need for more government oversight.
"DeJoy shouldn't receive any more blank checks from Congress to only raise postage rates, cut service, and drive more debt," Yoder said.
Further postage rate hikes are coming in January, marking the fifth time prices have gone up since 2021. The rates also went up in July.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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