The holiday season came and went, and it appears the U.S. Postal Service did a good job. Yes, there were some reports of letter carriers getting swamped with packages here and there. And, yes, there were citizen complaints about delivery delays and mail theft.
But on the whole, the USPS delivered in late 2023. There was no systemic crack-up as there was in December of 2020, when bad weather, sick mail workers and other factors slowed holiday cards and gifts for days and even weeks.
The Post Office’s success this year was no accident. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had the agency preparing way in advance. It ramped up its capacity by hiring thousands of seasonal employees and expanding its capacity to sort packages and shunt them to their destinations.
For sure, the Post Office will benefit from postage on those billions of letters and parcels. Unfortunately, all those dollars will not change the fact that the USPS is going broke.
A few months ago, the agency reported it had lost $6.5 billion over the past year. More distressing is the agency has $135 billion in unfunded employee health care and pension benefits and is warning it could lose another $70 billion by 2030. Postmaster DeJoy has warned the agency could........