USPS Rate Increase Coming For 2014?

Hi all. This may be a stupid thing to say, but:

I THINK that the USPS is raising stamp prices YET AGAIN for 2014. I am over at the USPS website, which always makes it hard to find out about such things. All I really found was an Excel file of "proposed" rates. I don't see anything really "click-able" for non-postal employees.

Can anyone confirm these hikes? I am a bit behind with my knowledge at the moment, and need to be brought up to speed!

JD

http://pe.usps.gov/dmmAdvisory.asp

The First Class Letter Rate will go from 46 cents to 49 cents on January 26, 2014.

The second ounce rate of 20 cents will move to 21 cents. Postcard rate will move from 33 cents to 34 cents. Other rates will also change on 1/26.

Michael

The previously posted 2014 rates was in a September announcement and may or may not reflect everything accurately. Most assuredly, the USPS will be posting an updated announcement in the next few days (weeks?) to answer any questions the public may have as to the increased rates.

Until then, some may find this Stamps.com report on the rate increases interesting. It seems that if you use an on-line printed stamp from services such as Stamps.com -- or a postage meter -- you save a penny, as the rates are only 48-cents for mailers using that type of franking. So consumers (and stamp collectors) who typically purchase stamps at a post office will be the ones paying a higher rate.



It will be interesting to see if that penny makes a whole lot of difference, and whether or not it will impact the quantity of stamps being produced for each stamp issue since large volume users will trend toward the on-line or metered postage, as that penny can mean a lot to high volume mailers.

I found in that excel file that the non-machineable surcharge will go up one cent as well.

Has anyone seen the changes for the International rates for packet/parcel mail? Last year they more than doubled in most cases so it would be interesting to see what happened to them.

FWIW, I would not be opposed to raising the rate to 69c or 75c or similar.

49 cents

just for comparison Canada is really grabbing revenue. Single letter rate stamp bought @ Post Office will cost $1, buy booklet or coils and its $.85 ea and if you are you are a business & have a meter it cost $.75 for letter rate. Still looks like USPS is still less expensive. I understand Canada is phasing out door to door delivery as well

With the deficit in the billions they have to increase the rates.
Tom

With new rates just about every year, I wonder if stamps like the .33 apples will become rare?

Hardly. The 33-cent Apples postcard rate stamp was issued on 1/17/2013 in quantities of 150 million in pane format and 600 million in coil format, which totals 750 million stamps (3/4 of a BILLION stamps). Now depending on the quantity that gets destroyed because of the rate increase, I suppose finding legitimate usage of the stamps on "cover" (postcard) during the active use period would be the challenge.

Here's an idea: Get some 33-cent Apples stamps and mail some postcards to yourself to get a legitimate (spray-on) postmark before the 34-cent postcard rate goes into effect. Down the road those used examples may actually be more collectible than the mint copies!

I've been getting a number of the 33 cents apples on postcard thanks to my local stamp show notifications which is once a month. What is hard to find legimate usage are the 46 cent Kaleidoscope flower stamps.

I agree that getting in period uses of the stamps are the way to go. The .33 apple is selling for below face on ebay.

All that makes me do is be happy I virtually never send out anything through the USPS. I think the only thing I send out these days are birthday and Christmas cards and buying a book once or twice a year isn't that bad.

Somewhat related... Do "Forever" stamps increase in value as well? I know you can continue to use them on first class mail, but if you use them as makeup for larger postage along with other stamps - say, priority mail - can you bump their value to 49c?

And yeah, that Excel (.csv file actually) that comes up at usps.com is pretty silly.

@Unhinged Yes, Forever stamps will be worth 49¢ each whether for use as 1st class postage or combined with more stamps for a different rate.