Postmaster General Plans to Raise Prices and Slow Mail Delivery Times

As the end of 2020 proved to be a challenging time for the United States Postal Service and nonprofits alike, with many year-end appeals arriving after the new year, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy plans on putting all first-class mail onto a single delivery track in 2021, according to The Washington Post. As a result, this would cause slower and more costly deliveries for both consumers and commercial mailers.

Stephen Kearney, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, has been advocating on behalf of nonprofits to inform how much strain it would cause if postal rates were raised above inflation.

According to a letter from Kearney published in an DMAW e-newsletter:

• Reply comments were filed on February 16 to the Postal Regulatory Commission to include the following:
  • "They [PRC] claim Congress created a bifurcated rate system: an initial system to which the requirements applied, and a separate, post 10-year review system to which they do not. But there is no 'initial' system and there are no 'initial' requirements. There are statutory requirements and there is a commission-created system that is subject to review and modification. Congress never wrote the requirements out of the act, but respondents seek to do so. For that reason alone, movants are likely to prevail on the merits and a stay is warranted."
•  A letter was mailed to the postmaster general and the USPS Board of Governors to convince the USPS not to use the new rate authority, at least not this year. The letter encourages comprehensive reforms.
• Nonprofit community members are encouraged to write to the Board of Governors at Board of Governors, United States Postal Service, 475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington, D.C. 20260 or michael.j.elston@usps.gov, as well as the postmaster general at louis.dejoy@usps.gov.