Postage is going up again. You should care, even if you don't send mail

On Sunday, the cost of a stamp is going up for the second time this year, jumping 5 cents for first class postage to 73 cents. Most people don’t use mail the way they used to, but the price of postage is a big deal to millions of businesses and organizations. Higher prices are making them cut back and potentially hurting the budget of the US Postal Service. This includes everything from delivering online purchases to life-saving prescription drugs. And this year, tens of millions of voters will cast their ballots in the presidential election by mail. Postage increases used to be pegged to inflation, usually going up at most once a year. But Sunday will mark the sixth increase in three years, during which first-class stamp increases rose 10 percentage points faster than overall inflation. Major mailers say hiking prices that quickly will drive them away from the post office, eventually drying up the agency’s budget. The price of a first-class stamp reached 10 cents in 1974 and as recently as 2002 it stood at 34 cents, or half of today’s price ahead of Sunday’s increase. The postal service and the United States have grown side by side since before the country’s birth. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general in 1775. The postal service has made appearances in pop culture and American history. But mail deliveries shriveled with the introduction of new ways to communicate and connect. In its most recent year, the service delivered 11.4 billion individual letters, down 75% from 20 years ago. While stamp prices have doubled in that time, most experts point the finger at technology instead. In contrast, online shopping has lifted package deliveries significantly. But the Postal Service doesn’t have the lock on that business that it does in its mail service. But mail delivery has faced financial challenges, with the worsening finances and efficiency potentially forcing the Postal Service to run out of money in a few years. The postal service under current Postmaster General Louis DeJoy laid out a 10-year plan in 2021 to modernize the service and stem ongoing losses, but the plan has not lived up to early promises. The service had projected it would break even by its last fiscal year and post a $1.7 billion annual profit in the current fiscal year. Instead, it lost $6 billion last year and is forecast to lose another $6 billion or more in the current fiscal year. And some of the unions that represent postal workers are concerned the modernization plan will try to improve finances by reducing the reliability of the service.