This idea has been kicked around for several years now, but the US Postal Service is now taking the first formal steps toward five-day delivery:
The postal governing board agreed to ask the independent Postal Regulatory Commission for an opinion on dropping Saturday delivery. That request goes to the commission next week.
Under the proposal, mail delivery to homes and businesses and mail collection from blue mailboxes would be limited to Monday through Friday.
However, post offices that are now open on Saturdays would remain open, and Express Mail delivery service would still be available seven days a week.
In addition to getting the opinion of the Regulatory Commission, the Postal Service would need, and this should now strike fear into the heart of anyone trying to accomplish anything, the approval of Congress. I can see it now: Michelle Bachmann calling people to arms to defend their right to mail stuff on Saturday from the oppression of socialist tyranny blah, blah, blah…
But seriously, as the report notes, action is necessary because the post office is rapidly losing both business and money:
As Americans turned more and more from paper to electronic communications, the number of items handled by the post office fell from 213 billion in 2006 to 177 billion last year. Volume is expected to shrink to 150 billion by 2020.
The post office lost $3.8 billion last year and is facing projected losses of as much as $7 billion this year.
There are a number of other ideas bouncing around, including closing some post offices and even broadening the Postal Service’s business model. Additionally, they have big pension issues, too. And of course, there’s always talk of privatization.
And on the topic, it’s always struck me funny when people cite the post office as an example of an inefficient government agency. Bear in mind, the Postal Service is fully self-funded, and receives no tax dollars. It’s really more like a heavily regulated monopoly, along the lines of a utility. Either way, it’s obvious something has to be done soon. Would anyone really miss Saturday mail deliveries?