Stamps could rise to $.50
 

More electronic billing coming to a computer near you!

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The United States Postal Service may raise the price of first class postage to 50 cents.
The U.S. Post Office, facing financial losses of up to $18.2 billion a year by 2015, wants to charge more for postage, more for services, and to suspend Saturday delivery.
The 50-cent stamp would represent an 11 percent increase in postal rates.

USPS delivers 40 percent of the world's mail. Its revenues exceed $65 billion a year.
The service said last week that it lost $3.3 billion last quarter, and that it is forecasting a loss of $14.1 billion for the year ending Sept. 30. Such losses, said the Postal Service in a letter sent last week to Congress, would be "unsustainable" and would cause USPS to become "a burden" to the U.S. taxpayer. The letter called that outcome "highly undesirable."

Currently, USPS gets no taxpayer dollars for its operating expernses, which are funded by the sale of postage and postal services.

Suspending Saturday delivery would save $2.7 billion a year, the Postal Service says. Raising the cost of first-class postage to 50 cents would increase annual revenues by $1 billion.

The post office's chief financial officer said USPS is the least expensive major postal service in the world, and that its services are "clearly underpriced."

The last postal increase occurred late last month, when the cost of mailing a first-class letter rose from 44 cents to 45 cents. Rates also rose for packages, for periodicals, and for a wide variety of services. The law limits USPS increases overall to the rate or inflation, or 2.1 percent a year.

Before the January increase, USPS first-class rates held steady for two and a half years.
To raise revenue, the Postal Service has introduced new products. In 2012, they include Package Intercept: For $10.95 (plust Priority Mail postage), a customer can intercept and recall a package already sent before it reaches its destination.

Omg not stamps!!!

:2 cents::2 cents::1orglaugh

OMG!

Fifty cents!
We are doomed!

So in the end with the very small price increase and shit they will still lose 14.5 billion/year instead of 18.2 billion so they are fucked either way unless they increase prices for everything that they provide. Of course, they would have to be fairly high increases.

I thought they were shutting down a bunch of offices?

Only $10.4 billion per year to find then, piece of cheese!

Just lend them some cash and buy more forever stamps.

Im not against that increase ... Postal service needs alot of help

i ship usps primarily. they have improved a great deal 50 cents is ok with me

I always thought they where way under priced. I would raise them to a dollar.

What happened? Wasn't the USPS operating at a profit a few years ago?

In 2006 Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. In that law they required the USPS to prefund it's retiree health care benefits for the next 50 years. That fund comes out to $75 billion dollars to be funded in a 10 year span.

Ain't big bloated government wonderful!

Yeah, the drain on taxpayers is unbearable and their relatively small DMM is outrageous at a couple hundred pages.

We already pay 60c here in Aus and our dollar is worth more than yours, so its about 0.65USD

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Sending a regular letter in my country will cost you $1.5

It's fucked up. Postal services are evil.

USPS is Screwed
 

So true. I worked there .

Can't count the number of times I saw coins on a letter instead of stamps. Many were elderly people, many were Postal Inspectors trying to trap you.
UPS & Fedex may move packages. But postal inspectors still believe that you steal mail, you will go to prison. Wasn't that long ago that robbing a post office or a mail train was a hanging offense.
Much as I hate postal inspectors, glad they make my mail safe.
Hell, one bank robber used to mail the money home Registered Mail. He knew it would be safe.

$1.5
 

What does UPS cost you??

Post office in my country is making serious profit per year... i dont know why...

I send over 100 priority mail packages a month and think it has improved ten fold. No one likes to see prices rise but the money they are bleeding is too high. Unfortunately the USPS will never be a money maker because of many factors.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

yep USPS is still cheap. You can mail a 3oz package for 1.64 same package with UPS/Fedex is about $9.00 :)

I don't understand why they don't get money from tax payers, everyone benefits from the mail services.

75 eurocents over here :(

Never used it. Looked it up though, around $65

they need to increase the junk mail prices.. I get so much junk mail.

Who the hells still mails anything? I haven't purchased a stamp in 5 years.

I wonder how much of their expenses are tied directly to the price of gasoline.
Seems like lower gas prices would have a major impact on their profitability...

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents::warning

Just another organization the Unions have run into the ground.

Why you talking smack about our dollar? :Oh crap

they should get rid of the USPS and stop bailing all these failing things out.

This is a cool graph of it from that page:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ge_History.svg