A second class letter might sit in a sorting office a little while longer, but it still could end up travelling by plane to reach its destination.
Overall revenues were up 2% over the three months to the end of June as a result of a rise in election mailouts in the run-up to the May elections and the March increase in stamp prices, which saw the cost of a first class letter rise 2p to 62p.
However, USPS rules have changed and that first class letter mail, like absentee ballots which were once consistently delivered the next day in the same community, are now routed through distant regional processing centers.
But the last time a first class letter was $.15/oz was in 1978 -- and that $0.15 in 1978 actually buys you nearly $0.45 worth of goods today.
Instead of sending four different mailers, we streamlined it to one two-way mailer that was USPS approved as a First Class letter, which allowed us to save paper and tens of thousands of dollars in shipping every year.
Targets for the delivery of first and second class letters were missed in the bitter row over jobs, pay and services.
At its peak, there was a backlog of more than 100,000 items of post, including 14,800 unopened recorded delivery letters and 13,600 unopened first and second class letters containing crucial information and documents about cases.
Ms. Goldway said the postal service had decided not to change its target for delivery of first class letters — now 1 to 3 days — to 2 to 5 days.. "I feel what was missing from this discussion — these were all the engineers talking — is the vital role of the postal service as part of the fabric of the United States in promoting public discourse," she said.
However, the company met other targets, including delivering 98.5% of second class letters within three days of collection.
The reason why the Postal Service is losing money is because Americans are mailing fewer and fewer First Class letters.
The only price cap would be the charge for second class letters, which is currently 36p, to a range of between 45p and 55p.
