The U.S. Postal Service delivers the company’s boxes well below its own costs
No amount of volume makes up for each package shipping at a loss. The loss only gets greater. Government subsidies only distort markets. In a bad way.
The article is behind a paywall so I can't see the math, but there is a difference between average cost and incremental cost. How much is the postage for the 1.6 million packages and how much extra does it cost to deliver them?
Imagine if it costs $7 to deliver one package and only $1 extra to deliver the second. If each sender pays $2, does that mean the second package lost the post office $2 = $2 postage - average package cost of $4? Or did the USPS profit $1 = $2 postage - $1 incremental cost? I have no idea without seeing the math.