Postal Service Looks To End At-Your-Door Mail

I think they should cut junk mails first.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/new...urce=cnn_bin

If they didn't bring me credit card offers if would cut my mail volume about a third.

That's everybody's answer...stop junk mail. But that is one of the few things the Post Office makes money on. That would just stop to-door delivery that much quicker.

As a homeowner I'd hate to see a stop to door delivery, but it is going to come sooner or later whether I like it or not.

I live in a high-rise, so we already have cluster boxes in the lobby between the elevators. Think we'll remain eligible for delivery?

This is not exactly a new concept, as this 2012 article addresses essentially the same subject:

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/go...-other-plans

But one has to wonder how the USPS arrived at these statistics:

I found this cartoon this evening. I thought it would add a little levity to the subject at hand:

ll homes in my neighborhood have cluster boxes. One for every couple blocks

I wish Jennifer explained this better. 353 per stop meaning what? Per year, per lifetime, etc. How is curbside mailboxes a contrast at 224, what other "per stop" are we even talking about then?
Secondly, this 224, which sounds like the real figure(per year, month, decade...) is also misleading in a big way. It doesn't cost 224, someone is paying for the mail you get.
For my $160 dollar apartment complex, I think all my outgoing mail to companies and my incoming mail actually "pays for itself" and more in postage.
That is what postage is for right? Or did the writer forget that, and the report maker before telling me a mailbox "costs" THEM money!

Secondly, what are they going to do next, have part time carriers that only come between 2pm-6pm? My mail to my cluster comes so late everyday, and the mailmen tell me that 11-12pm is EARLY!

I grew up in Chicago where our mail was delivered to our door. During holidays sometime it was delivered twice a day.

I have now lived in a small Wisconsin village (pop 2,394) for over 30 years. Mail has never been delivered to my home, but waits for me at our local PO which is less than a mile away. I got used to this and don't mind.

My junk mail is very minimal because I have subscribed to the lists that remove your name.

I think that if the USPS is really bleeding money, there are other cost measures that should be pursued first. Maybe junk mail rates should be raised to regular rate (or higher, if this is such a revenue maker!)

Just my personal thoughts

It's a similar story here in New Zealand. Personal mail is going to be delivered every second day by postmen on bikes. I believe Post boxes will still get daily delivery early in the morning. Red mail boxes for sending mail, which are dotted in convenient places around a town/city, used to be cleared twice, sometimes three times a day. Now it is once only. Email and online accounts have had a significant impact on mail delivery.

I think that's exactly the reason why the US Postal Service is supporting lower rates for junk mail advertisers. It's their primary revenue source; if they raised rates, advertisers would opt out of sending all of their junk mail, thus the USPS would be the ones losing more money in the long run.

Actually, I believe that although more junk mail is mailed (volume) than first class mail, the financial benefits are less. Monies earned first class vs junk is said to be approximately 2:1.
So I still think raising junk mail rates is something to consider. Perhaps there would be some initial loss of revenue, but how else would credit card and insurance companies reach you?
To me it would appear that the USPS could actually pull off a rate hike on junk mail (if it really wanted to do it).
It would seem to me that the USPS "supports" the lower rates for junk mail because the volume of all that junk keeps its employees "busy" (apparently too busy to deliver real mail every day).

The USPS doesn't set postal rates. The United States Congress does that. A rate change would require an act of Congress.

I know, Iknow...you are thinking that if the USPS really wanted a rate increase they could get Congress do pass one. The fact is that Congress is keeping some of the rates low for political reasons, and the USPS is unable to get an increase in them no matter what they do.

The USPS may or may not favor increases in some rates...I don't mean to be their defender here. I just mean to say that it is out of their hands.

Government, politics and bureaucracy!...I recently watched the DVD of Atlas Shrugged, but I digress.
And I don't mean to demean the services that the USPS does provide. I love my little PO and the people who work there are great.
And we know that Congress is busy enough.
The discussion continues.

Just imagine in 20 years we will have a minimum mailbox size of 14 cubic feet as mandated by USPS regulations so they can fit about 10 pounds of junk mail in our mailbox for each once a week delivery. Then the fun is sifting through it all over the recycle bin and trying to find the birthday card from grandma, which cost her $2 to mail with out even a meter sticker. Meter stickers of this era becoming quite the hot collectible.

Lol.

I wonder how much is lost from entities using the pre-sort rate for non-pre-sorted mail.