Appeals Court Rejects USPS First Class Postage Rate Hike

Too bad. They need the money.

13 years of idiotic medical fund prefunding mandated by Congress that no other company in the U.S. is required to do (despite the fact that the USPS is not an arm of the U.S. government and receives no funding from tax revenue for its operations), and people are surprised the USPS can't be profitable... shocked, I tell you, shocked.

So... all of those people that paid $.55 for a first class stamp over the last few months are going to be getting a refund check in the mail, right?



Jim

Excellent news for consumers! The 5c rate hike last year was too steep of an increase.

So I suppose when the first class rate went from 3c to 4c (33% change), or 4c to 5c (25%) increase, they shouldn't have been able to do it....

How ridiculous.

Maybe I should dump all of my forever stamps before their value plummets.

And yet there's a good argument to be made for having First Class rates set at easily computed numbers, by fives or tens. This helps the public to remember them and helps them pay for them, especially if they're using cash. I thought the increase to 55c made good sense for that reason, at least.

Yes, the USPS is run stupidly. But it's run by federal rules which make no sense with health benefits and pensions that make little sense. Even those old mail trucks and rundown post offices need modernizing. If the President and/or Congress really wanted to fix the problems, there'd be a postal system investigatory commission, a report about what to do, and some money spent on modernizing the system. Instead we have a "private" postal service that is badly interfered with by government. What "private" company is told it can't raise its rates because they don't have enough justification to do so? That's ridiculous.

If someone documented all the rules imposed on USPS and then put the entire business out for bid with the condition they cannot change them, I wonder if anyone would bid?

So if I mail a letter tomorrow can I use 50 cents in stamps on it instead of 55 cents?

I don't think so. Just because a court orders something done, it doesn't always mean it happens immediately. It has to be implemented. The rate remains 55c until, I imagine, the USPS itself lowers the rate. Whenever that will be.

The 'Forever' stamps will then be sold at the lower rate, but of course any of those stamps will meet the First Class rate no matter what it is, high or low. If you use stamps with values on them, you still need to put 55c worth of stamps on the letter until the rate is officially lowered. If you're still using up those 3c sheets of stamps you bought back in the 1950s, that will require 19 stamps! That's a lot of Statues of Liberty.

It's not easy to find reliable, up-to-date information about current first class postal rates around the world, but just as an example, China typically charges "around" 20c for a first class letter at the cheaper end of the spectrum (but wages there are pretty darn low) while I think it's Norway that has the highest first class rates in the world. The last time I looked Norway was charging nearly $1.50 to mail a first class letter. It's all those fjords they have to swim across, I imagine. So 55c doesn't seem so awful.

The bottom line is that the USPS did not follow APA regulations. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The average person gets cut no slack when they do not comply with government regulations. The USPS should have done a better job. The door was left open to have a go at it again and they will.