The USPS is supposed to be supporting itself like a private business, but not post a profit. It's supposed to break even. It's also supposed to support the Federal employees retirement and health systems. I believe that is what the "default" payment statement is referencing. The USPS is supposed to be prepaying healht and retirement for years and years out into the future, if I'm understanding it correctly.
IF the USPS posts a profit, where do y'all suppose that excess cash goes? It's going to go into the general fund. IF the USPS posts a loss, it goes into the headlines.
Labor costs are 80% of total costs of running the "business?" Shocking, it's just like any other labor intensive business.
If the USPS was allowed to truly operate as a free business, it could keep profits, fund it's own retirement and health systems and save lots of cash. Because it's still tethered to the Government, it takes an act of Congress to make changes, literally.
While I admit the unions are always a problem (no layoff clause? really?), the Post Office's biggest problem is the cojoining with the hog-sucking federal government.
I also invite all of you anti-USPS posters to walk a mile in a mail carrier's shoes. Or seventeen miles. In 104 degrees and humid. Just a couple of weeks. Or in ten inches of snow for 17 miles. Or, like last winter here, 18 inches of snow.
Then decide if they're overpaid.
For-profit businesses have incentives (and freedoms) that government-subsidized and/or owned enterprises don't. While privatization isn't the answer to every problem, it works great for some operations if structured and managed properly.
“I also invite all of you anti-USPS posters to walk a mile in a mail carrier’s shoes. Or seventeen miles. In 104 degrees and humid. Just a couple of weeks. Or in ten inches of snow for 17 miles. Or, like last winter here, 18 inches of snow.”
Those workers deserve better management.
hahaha you got to be kidding.
First of all, its not the pay, its the bennies. Even though the pay is too high compared to the private sector.
Its like most of guv.con. Its a social engineered work program for mostly incompetent parasites.
However, one thing I've pointed out for some time is that direct mail deliveries to homes and businesses may be a very unnecessary use of labor these days. Why not replace these home deliveries with expanded neighborhood post offices where individual customers can pick up their mail whenever it's convenient for them? The cost of a P.O. box may be much less than the cost of individual deliveries, when you break out the labor costs down to the individual customers.
Another alternative would be to have mail customers pay a premium for premium service -- like maybe a $500 annual fee for direct home or business deliveries.
Yes, and the only reason they're having to prepay retiree health benefits, unlike any other federally-governed organization, is because the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress mandated it.
These union-toady Democrats DELIBERATELY orchestrated this outcome, sucking the lifeblood out of the USPS in order to enrich the unions, and insuring that any bailout by a future Congress would be a bailout of the UNIONS, not mail delivery.
If it weren't for that mandate, if it weren't for the 110th Congress' boot on their neck, the USPS would have a $600 million-plus SURPLUS by now.
The American Postal Workers Union president said:
The underlying cause of its financial crisis is the unreasonable, congressional mandate that requires the USPS to pre-fund future retiree healthcare costs. The Postal Service should be let off the hook when it comes to these payments because no other government agency or private business bears this burden.
So apparently even the parasites are beginning to understand that their hosts will die if they suck too much blood and pile on too many chains.