Fixing the USPS a national issue

Postal service needs new thinking in digital age about how to better serve customers

The furor over mail-in voting ebbed after the November election, but serious problems at the U.S. Postal Service are very much alive. Congress should do what’s needed to save this essential federal service.

The USPS struggled during the holiday mailing season. Horror stories abound about long-delayed presents, payments mailed on time but received late, and letters that took weeks to travel a few hundred miles.

Part of the problem was the pandemic: People increasingly relied on the mail for needed supplies at a time when thousands of postal workers were sidelined by COVID. But there were also justifiable questions about USPS leadership, notably Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who appeared wholly uninterested in ensuring the mail moved efficiently from Point A to Point B.

DeJoy, who assumed that post in June, ended employee overtime, ordered highspeed high-volume mail-sorting machines removed from postal facilities and overhauled the agency’s leadership. He claims these cost-cutting measures were necessary to balance the USPS books.

But those changes came during a pandemic, when more people than ever were worried about how to have essential supplies, including food and medicine, delivered to their homes. And it came on the eve of an election dependent on mail-in balloting to protect public health.

Problems with the U.S. mail have been growing since the decades after World War II. With increases in the volume of mail but not in resources, the Post Office faced a financial crisis.

In 1970, Congress transformed it to USPS, a government-business hybrid. USPS no longer receives tax dollars but still has congressional oversight.

Now Congress must use that authority to improve the postal service, beginning with the stated fact that the USPS is an essential public service to which all Americans are entitled. Recognizing the vast population who depend on the delivery of government checks, time-sensitive forms, life-sustaining medicine and other items, this shouldn’t be a bold or controversial opinion.

However, the USPS is set to run out of money later this year and may need federal support to avoid layoffs and further disruption of services. Those funds must be given if they are required but should be coupled with reforms about how the postal service operates.

That means more than adding a couple of cents to the price of a stamp. The postal service needs new thinking in a digital age about how to better serve its customers and perhaps even taking on other needed services.

Discussion has centered on postal banking, an idea that has worked elsewhere and provides low-income residents with basic financial services while generating new income for the post office. Ending the Prohibition-era ban on alcohol delivery would be an easy change to meet consumer demand.

Some critics say that USPS isn’t needed in an era when most people rely on email, texts and online financial dealings. That may be true for people with adequate resources and reliable internet. But USPS processes and delivers more than 472 million pieces of mail daily, and many Americans need its services.

Low-income people, minorities, Native Americans and people in rural areas often depend on USPS. The same rural areas in Virginia and other states that lack reliable broadband often are beyond the reach of commercial shippers such as UPS and FedEx, which don’t find it profitable to deliver to remote areas. Commercial shippers sometimes use USPS for the last leg of a package’s route.

By law, USPS must deliver mail to all U.S. postal addresses at the same rate. Even in the internet age, it’s still a lifeline for many Americans. Its ultimate purpose is to serve people, not to turn a profit.

That’s not to say Congress should repeatedly bail out USPS. Clearly, some reforms and restructuring are in order, and federal funds should be tied to sensible restructuring and rates.

The No. 1 aim of any changes, however, should be to shore up and improve USPS so that this essential service can continue to serve the many Americans who need it.