Cash-Strapped USPS Raising The Price Of A Stamp By A Penny Starting Sunday

Consumerist ^

[SMGFan]

It’s a brand new year but already the cash-strained United States Postal Service is showing that it’s feeling the financial heat that kept zapping it in 2012. Starting on Sunday, the price of a first-class stamp will go from $0.45 to $0.46 as we were warned last year. Post card stamps will also rise a penny to $0.33. Sure, it’s only a penny, but it’s a penny you don’t have to pay on Saturday that you do on Sunday.

Of course, we’re fans of Forever Stamps, which you can buy now and use no matter how much a regular postage stamp goes up in price, so perhaps today is a good time to stock up on those.

Letters you send off to international friends or family are rising even more to $1.10. It used to only cost $0.85 to mail letters to Canada and Mexico and $1.05 for other international destinations. Overall, notes CNNMoney, all kinds of shipping services will cost 4% more on average.

[SMGFan]

Would raising the price to 50 cents help? /s

[grobdriver]

Glad I got that roll of “Forever” stamps...

[cherry]

I think they should raise the rate a good nickel ONLY when they commit to forcing smaller pensions and making more of these folks pay for their health care, at least pick up more o of the cost....

some of us are pinching pennies and working on 401's for retirement and others are just still getting the big fat defined pensions....it has to change...

[svcw]

And you took my reply - ;-)

[BunnySlippers]

Considering that the US Postal Service is supposed to be a shining example of how government works ... and, as such, a model for Obamacare.

It makes me shudder.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

The penny increase for the stamp may not be much, but postage on international packages is going WAY, WAY up. Not good news if you do any online selling internationally.

[mom4melody]

I have a sheet of 20 stamps I bought just before Christmas.

In 2010.

I still have 5 stamps left. People just don’t use stamps the way they used to.

[Jyotishi]

Stamp... what’s a stamp?

[Graybeard58]

Would raising the price to 50 cents help?

For me personally, 50¢ would still be a bargain to send a letter across the country.

I have about 1 and 1/2 rolls of "forever" stamps left that will probably last me several years. If I had to use a lot of postage though I might not consider it a bargain.

I recently sent a 1/2 pint mason jar filled with dried pepper flakes to a fellow F.R. member and it cost almost $10.00. He graciously repaid me for the postage.

[Diogenesis]

This will result in LESS mail.

Only the UNION-laden government would increase rates,
expecting it to increase use.

[funfan]

They are also raising Interntional shipping rates,
delivery confirmation and most rates. I use the PO alot
and a 1 lb package First Class International to Canada is
currently $5.75 on the 27th the same package will cost $10.55 to ship it.

[Tennessee Nana]

We held a revolution once over this kind of crap...

just sayin...

[TSgt]

We sent 100 Christmas cards in 2011. Last year we sent 50. This year it might be 25.

That’s about the only time we use stamps other than for thank you notes.

The USPS can go to hell.

[Wurlitzer]

“For me personally, 50¢ would still be a bargain to send a letter across the country.

I have about 1 and 1/2 rolls of “forever” stamps left that will probably last me several years. If I had to use a lot of postage though I might not consider it a bargain”

---

No, you are right it is a bargain, and in spite of all the late night show jokes, given their assigned task, it is one of the very few government controlled (allegedly not run by) entities that by and large does its job.

Unlike the other, very fine, package delivery outfits, the USPS does have to run their full route every day and that of course makes them more vulnerable to gas increases than a company which can just target those addresses where deliveries are required.

They do have areas which scream for improvement but that is where the government interference gets in the way and nothing gets done.

A one cent increase per stamp is easily offset by switching to a electronic transaction on a single bill for the average homeowner. Unfortunately, if they keep doing these increases, more and more transactions will become electronic and we will all be waiting once a year for a few pieces of mail. The beloved tax bills and publisher’s clearing house.

I do not know if the USPS will ever recover from the retirement/health care funding which is crippling most government entities. They made a very cushy bed for themselves but filled it with bed bugs and now it’s coming back to bite them.

[Carriage Hill]

USPS = Worthless as teats on a bull.

[Don Corleone]

Before UNIONS infected the Post Office Department stamps were 3 cents and post cards a penny. Mail was delivered twice a day in the major cities and the Post Office was solvent.

[weston]

When a stamp was .03 cents, gasoline was .19 cents a gallon and a candy bar was a nickel.
The prices of most goods change almost daily. Just saying...
If the post office was privatized they could operate like a real business and not have to wait for congress to authorize price changes. UPS and FedEx raised prices 4 or 5 times last year as fuel prices fluctuated.

[Vigilanteman]

People just don’t use stamps the way they used to.

And they will use them even less now. Meanwhile, post offices in other countries are run so well that:

1. Singapore and the Netherlands postal systems actually solicit mundane business such as billing and catalogs from other countries because they print and mail out things all over the continent for less money than a country in the same region can do it themselves.
   
2. The German postal system had so much extra cash, they bought DHL, the international courier service.
   
3. The Japanese postal system is so well run that they sell stamps at wholesale so places like supermarkets can resell to customers at face value and still make a profit. When mail volume gets extra heavy, they will hire responsible high school kids on bikes to make deliveries. Japan's postal service even has branches in the most remote rural region of the country which also provide banking services and earn a profit. It is modeled after the same services provided by the U.S. Postal Service from the 1880s to 1940s. Postal workers in Japan willingly concede fatter wages and pensions to the private sector in return for increase job security, just like the used to do so in the U.S.A.

[ScoochDude]

I was talking to my local firearms provider today, and he told me a little known, unadvertised fact. The USPS has informed them they have quit delivering ammunition. I wonder how many millions of dollars of revenue they just threw away? Enough to keep rates down?
That's why the USPS hasn't turned a profit since WWII.

[I want the USA back]

Ultimately the government will have to bail them out. Raising the price makes people use the USPS less, which makes them raise the price.
Maybe they should hire people based on qualifications, and not because they are politically connected or member of a privileged “victim” group.