Shocking News For First Class Mail

On July 10, 2022 the U.S. Post Office is raising the cost of a First Class Letter to 60 cents.

Well, there goes my kids college fund!

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

It's still a lot cheaper then what it was in 1847.
If you want to compare the value of a $0.05 Commodity in 1847 there are three choices. In 2020 the relative:
real price of that commodity is $1.62
labor value of that commodity is $16.80 (using the unskilled wage) or $26.70 (using production worker compensation)
income value of that commodity is $27.60
economic share of that commodity is $433.00

Unleaded 87 octane gas was 1 cent/gallon in 1847. Chicken was mostly free (grow your own).US population was 20 million. There were only a handful of government employees. There are now 3 million Federal and 20 million non-Federal. There were no antibiotics. There were no gender studies programs or Walmarts.

Honestly, other than philatelic mail, I don't use the USPS anyhow.

Unleaded 87 octane gas......

The US First Class postage rate has not actually risen since 1975 when factoring in inflation (top line in chart below).


US First Class mail cost compared to the rest of the world


Don

Don has it right. We've got it so good (cost of mailing a first class letter, that is) in America. If they DOUBLED the cost of a letter, it still wouldn't put us at the top of the list, or even close. And... this is certainly up for debate.... if they doubled the cost, maybe it would help improve the service (This is where someone should 'reply' and post ROFL emojis.). And if it seems like this might be an economic hardship for the poor, then perhaps the states could provide some sort of monthly 'make-up' payment like some states are currently doing (or considering) for gasoline.

I say some of this tongue-in-cheek, but we could seriously afford to pay more than we do for First Class Mail.

Since Postal Reform bill is now law (edit by Mod), the USPS will no longer be able to blame the retiree pre-payments as much as they did for most of their woes. New Postal workers will use Medicare. If you look at their detailed plan for recovery, this was the key aspect of financial recovery.

I did a simple math calculation a while back and if they raised first class around 10 cents and volume did not decrease dramatically, it would put them near break even. But is first class still subsidizing other areas?

I do not see a significant amount of price competition between the UPS and FwdEx driving down prices and expect the USPS wants to close the gap so pricing higher) is closer to them.

UK has just increased a first class ordinary letter to 95p which at todays exchange rate is $1.24.
Other rates have also increased!