First-Class Stamps to Go Up 2 Cents

AP via Yahoo ^ | 11/15/2005 | Not Attributed

[katieanna]

WASHINGTON - The cost of mailing a letter will increase to 39 cents on Jan. 8.

The Postal Service's board of governors approved the two-cent increase in first-class postal rates late Monday. It is the first increase since June 2002.

The cost of mailing a postcard will increase a penny, to 24 cents, as part of the roughly 5.4 percent, across-the-board hike in most rates and fees.

[katieanna]

The increase fulfills a requirement, passed by Congress in 2003, that the Postal Service establish a $3.1 billion escrow account.

[geezerwheezer]

Golly gee....the price for storage must have gone up a lot more than I thought!!

[mlc9852]

Just so long as email is free.

[Lokibob]

well, my mailing fees on ebay go up 6% next set of ads.

[The_Victor]

Since I started paying most of my bills online, I largely don't send mail anymore. I can't remember the last time I put a stamp on a letter.

Anyone wanna bet that this is the primary reason for the USPS needing to raise their rates?

[ErnBatavia]

It's Murphy's Law for me....every damn time I buy a roll of 100 stamps (which lasts me six months or so), a price increase hits and I have to go buy a matching quantity of 2-centers...

I made the purchase just last week.

[Comstock1]

So let me get this straight... In the entire history of the first class stamp before my birth the rate went from .02 to .06, but since I have been around the rate will have gone from .06 to .39 and I ain't near kickin' the bucket yet. Apparently this is all my fault. Sorry.

http://www.mailandjobs.com/rateh.htm

[TheOracleAtLilac]

The cost of mailing a letter will increase to 39 cents on Jan. 8.

[JIM O]

Do you know the effective date?

[Terabitten]

The postal service needs to cut Saturday deliveries entirely, and increase the rates for bulk mailing. Leave the little guy alone.

[Old Grumpy]

"Since I started paying most of my bills online, I largely don't send mail anymore."

I'm with you on this one. It amounts to a nice amount of savings in postage.

[sittnick]

So let me get this straight... In the entire history of the first class stamp before my birth the rate went from .02 to .06, but since I have been around the rate will have gone from .06 to .39 and I ain't near kickin' the bucket yet. Apparently this is all my fault. Sorry.

This is not really a fair comparison.

The post office was partially subsidized (I believe until about 1970). The subsidy was partly a jobs program (which was why we had twice a day delivery).

E-mail is part of the equation, but (for now) a smallish one. Much larger was the eruption of specialty delivery services (e.g. FedEx). Presently, the increased cost of fuel is affecting all carriers, most of whom have put in a fuel surcharge.

The post office also has to bear expenses that the private carriers do not. For instance, that .4 oz. letter costs just as little to send to northern Alaska or Guam as it does across the town. I do not know if they get reimbursed for "franked" letters from government, but somehow we pick up the tab. I suspect the USPS is still the best way to get stuff to our men and women in the Armed Forces.

That said, the system for bulk mailers is intimidating, jargon-filled and amazingly unintuitive.

The Post Office is far from perfect, but for rural and remote people, it is often the best option. The competition from fax machines, specialty couriers, e-mail and electronic commerce (web, but not necessarily email based) helps keep them honest. I used to be for outright privatization, but am of a mind that for it is good to have an official government agency available for mailing official documents (legal, drivers licenses, etc.). At least postal roads are provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and this is one government institution that was not spawned by the New Deal.

A huge private business that we could not allow to fail is not really any better than a government entity. (Or in this case, a quasi-government one). And I haven't heard of anybody "going postal" for a few years now!

By the way, when the stamp was 6¢, popsicles, candy bars, and pay phone calls were 5¢. A six-seater Dodge Dart (with 225 ci slant six) could be had for under $2,000. A ranch house in a nice neighborhood in Connecticut was under $20,000. On the other hand, a color TV was $400, a ten-minute call a 3pm from NYC to LA (station to station) was $6.50 or so.

It's a different world.

[sittnick]

The postal service needs to cut Saturday deliveries entirely, and increase the rates for bulk mailing. Leave the little guy alone. Cutting Saturday would be fine IF it weren't for all of those Monday holidays.

Many bulk mailers ARE little guys. My company (a small Catholic book publisher) employs 65 people, and relies heavily on bulk mail to get catalogues and fliers to customers.

[Comstock1]

I love having Saturday delivery. I think the better idea would to do tiered pricing structure with mail that is going further away costing more. Why should a letter from Florida to California cost the same amount as a letter going from one side of my town to the other?

Sure, it is a little more complicated and will involve millions of idiots getting their mail sent back or fees at the receiving end, but it is much more fair and cost effective.

[katieanna]

Effective January 8

[deport]

I think they will trade off with you if you have a complete roll, not sure about partial rolls.

[palmer]

Many bulk mailers ARE little guys.

Do you sell your list to vendors of Catholic bric-a-brac?

[hedgetrimmer]

but since I have been around the rate will have gone from .06 to .39 and I ain't near kickin' the bucket yet

Repeat the mantra of the Federal Reserve--- there is no inflation, there is no inflation.

[Comstock1]

I know that what you say is true, but when you consider that the level of service is essentially the same as it was 50 years ago, it just is hard to swallow a 600% price increase.

The only improvements are really the ability to do package tracking over the internet. I would mention the ability to buy postage over the internet as an improvement, but since they don't really support Macintosh I don't see any of that so I just pretend it doesn't exist. Of couse my post office is all of two minutes from my house so I don't mind going to drop of letters and packages. I've worked in buildings that took me longer to get to the mail room than it does to for me to drive to the post office here.

[hedgetrimmer]

“The State of Pension and Retiree Benefit Obligations for the Postal Service and the Need for Reform,” was commissioned as a result of the November, 2002 announcement by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that the Postal Service annual payments of “principal” and interest to the Treasury to fund postal pensions were based on erroneous calculations. Although the assumption had been that the Postal Service “owed” the general treasury money for pension costs, an actual audit of the amounts paid, a review of the true rates of return on funds received, and correction of prior actuarial assumptions showed the Postal Service was on pace to overfund the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) pension obligation by at least $70 billion. An obvious conclusion from the OPM announcement was that postal ratepayers were paying higher than necessary postage rates than what was required to cover Postal Service pension costs.

If further pension reform legislation is not enacted, the Postal Service will need to increase rates in 2006 by over 6% just to cover the additional pension obligations. When these amounts are added to other inflationary costs, mailers are looking at a double digit rate increase.

STUDY PROVES POSTAL SERVICE CUSTOMERS ARE SUBSIDIZING FEDERAL TREASURY"

[raccoonradio]

I work for the USPS; there are various reasons for the
increase (I'm guessing operating expenses figure into
it, from higher gas prices to bigger bonuses for the bigwigs--did I say that? I'm sorry!).

Even I admit I pay many of my bills online but I make up
for it by mailing tapes/CDs to friends, etc.

Comedian Jimmy Tingle, despite being a liberal, did have a good routine once about a postage increase (when it was going up to 25 cents from 22). He talked about how there were
so many outrageous things going on in the news, "...and in
other news, the price of a STAMP went up to a quarter.
HOW CAN THEY DO THIS? IS THERE NO GOD?...I mean you'll
be able to send a letter across the country for
TWENTY-FIVE cents. You want change? Tip the guy three cents!" This was in the late 80s.

Compared to other countries, the postage rate is still very cheap.

Newspaper: 50 cents (usually)
Can of soda: 75 cents
Send a letter 3,000 miles: 37 cents (to be 39). (Though yeah, "email is free.")

Billions of letters and packages are safely sent through the mail system. 39 cents is still a good deal. (Yeah I know,
defending my employer...we send billions of letters within
1-3 days, but never hear the end of it when one letter
falls behind a cabinet in 1939 and gets delivered finally...
ONE letter!)

[raccoonradio]

>>I love having Saturday delivery.

By the way some post offices are increasing their hours, not cutting back, and some post offices have automated postal centers. So if you really need to send a package at 3 am, you can go there, use your credit/debit card to pay, weigh it, mail it etc

Thus endeth the commercial for my employer. :)

[carenot]

I know that what you say is true, but when you consider that the level of service is essentially the same as it was 50 years ago, it just is hard to swallow a 600% price increase.

50 years ago, mail was delivered twice a day. :)

[Harrius Magnus]

The subsidy was partly a jobs program (which was why we had twice a day delivery).

E-mail is part of the equation, but (for now) a smallish one. Much larger was the eruption of specialty delivery services (e.g. FedEx). Presently, the increased cost of fuel is affecting all carriers, most of whom have put in a fuel surcharge.
---
Me thinks it remains largely a jobs program. The inefficient behemoth we have now with Deltas moving at a snails pace is not a good excuse for the lean mean official document courier you speak of. Also, this serves as a pretty good illustration of economics 101: Competition increases, private carriers make their services more efficient and affordable; Gubmint always raises the price when demand falls, in contradiction to Supply and Demand. If I did that as a small business owner, I would lose customers, and eventually have to close shop. But not Gubmint, who just taps the public well. Additionally, you could argue that by raising the subsidized (ie Gubmint program) rates, private couriers have less incentive to remain competitive and will raise their prices likewise. The end result: Needless jobs program, higher rates across the board, and for a program (which I agree with in principle) that would need only be 1/10th the size to provide the necessary services for which you speak. Just my two cents (ha,ha). Sorry, but I'll take my chances with Fed Ex.

[AlaskaErik]

Yawn. My bills are paid on line. Christmas is the only time I send any mail.

[sittnick]

[...]the Postal Service annual payments [...] were based on erroneous calculations. [...]the assumption had been that the Postal Service “owed” the general treasury money for pension costs, an actual audit of the amounts paid, a review [...] showed the Postal Service was on pace to overfund the [...]pension obligation by at least $70 billion.

Those are some amazingly "erroneous" claculations!

[Ladysmith]

Send a lot of Christmas cards this year. ;o)

[sittnick]

I think the better idea would to do tiered pricing structure with mail that is going further away costing more.

Excepting the non-Continental U.S., distance means MUCH less than populatin density. Having post offices open in every tiny hamlet, and paying carriers toi deliver small handfuls of mail to spread out farmers and residents is MUCH more expensive than sending mail from urban clusters in NYC to urban clusters in LA.

The implementation system would cost more than the increased revenue, and would actually be a step backwards.

[WKB]

Just so long as email is free.



How many things do you email that you
wouldn't pay 1 cent to send by the USPS?

[mlc9852]

What can I mail via USPS for one cent?

[WKB]

What can I mail via USPS for one cent?


Nothing just a hypothetical question.
I just don't think email has hurt the USPS
that much. My wife works for the USPS
and 3rd class mail is higher than it's
ever been.
I saw an add for DHL saying how much faster
they were than the USPS and the same day
a DHL driver left a package at the post office
to be delivered the next day. Not trying to start an argument just asking a question.

[Comstock1]

Well, let's see...

You can't really eliminate rural or low density services. As much as they like to pretend it is a nongovernmental agency it would very quickly become an equal protection thing if you starting cutting back on these services. This is a gray area with case law seeming to go both ways here.

It would still be better to charge all those letters going from LA to New York a higher rate than New York to DC or New York to Philly. I think after a grace period of six months or so people would get used to using such a system. You could be right about implementation being to high, but I think they willl eventually be worked out.

I am not confident that email will always be free. I know the rumor about a tax on email gets debunked but that nasty idea of charging for email is still out there and you know how Congress loves "additional" sources of revenue--and if it would stop the Nigerian scammers and the Viagra ads I might just be willing to pay.

[mlc9852]

Regular mail takes too long. Everything is old news by the time you receive it. When possible, I much prefer email and use it at work as much as possible. Of course, the phone is a pretty good invention, too.:)

[mlc9852]

Agreed. I hardly ever mail anything anymore.

[sittnick]

Me thinks it remains largely a jobs program.

I am more familiar than most with some of the arcane rules governing the post office. And I do have my beefs with them (their attempt to hurt private non-USPS mail box holders with stupid identifiers, for instance.

The fact is that the USPS is NOT presently subsidized, but still has to provide certain federally mandated services.

For instance, shipping for books for the blind is at a heavily subsidized rate, almsot certainly below cost. Now, if the USPS went away, and UPS and FedEx came in, would they voluntarily subsidize rates for books for the blind? I dount it. So, you have several options:

1.Tough luck blind man, pay your way. (The hard core libertarian response, and one that I find to be wrong.)

2. The "NGO puts pressure on carriers to provide breaks for the blind or face bad publicity." (the soft core libertarian response. Better, but empowers many of the wrong people, and often winds up with a program that is purposely difficult to use.)

3. The feds figure out the average cost of sending books to the blind, and raises their SSI by that amount (The Jack Kemp approach. This would work in the short term, but with government back in the picture, FedEx and UPS might spend considerable energy figuring out ways to increase the cost so that the subsidy goes up.)

4. The feds give money to the FedEx and UPS directly in order to help them subsidize book rates for blind patrons. (Might be the worst solution of all, for to the degree that these entities become reliant on direct government largesse, they start to take on more and more of the bad characteristics of big government.)

Now, if we had FedEx and UPS filling the role of the USPS. How much would it cost to mail a letter from NYC to LA? How about from Grand detour, Illinois to Shepher's Hole, Wyoming? What would stop these carriers from simply refusing to go to unprofitable places, just as Ma Bell always avoided the rural locations?

Would a stamp (if such a system even used stamps) be 39¢? 25¢? 10¢ across the city, $1.59 for rural-rural? What will happen to the "non-profitable" post offices?

If you are a libertarian, you can be consistent and simply tell them to drive to the first profitable UPS or FedEx. Those of us who are not doctrinaire libertarians might believe that this solution creates more problems than it solves, and risks making some folks in Red states (assuming this was a 'pubbie program) sorry that they voted Republican.

[WKB]

Of course, the phone is a pretty good invention, too.:)



Can't use mine it's always hooked to the internet. :>)

[Athwart]

I made a purchase of a bunch of 37 cent stamps today, even though the rates are going up. Why? Because the Reagan stamp, and the Marine stamps are in the 37 cent denomination. Having to add a 2 cent stamp is a small price to pay for giving tribute to such figures on my envelopes.

[timberlandko]

When the cost to mail a letter coast-to-coast was 2¢, transit time was 3 to 5 days on average, and a mailed-in-the-morning-for-in-town-delivery letter often arrived at its destination the afternoon of the day it was mailed. In those days, the cost of a coast-to-coast phone call was measured in dollars (contemporary dollars at that, mind you), involved the services of at least 2 telephone operators (remember them?), and several minutes were required to complete the connection - a connection often of variable, and frequently even barely, intelligible quality. Now, with postage almost 20-fold greater, transit time for a coast-to-coast letter is 3 to 5 days, the same as today's transit time for a letter mailed for in-town delivery. Meanwhile, for a few pennies a minute, today an instant-connect, self-dialed, crystal-clear coast-to-coast phonecall is just the way things work.

All that said, though, the US postal system beats the socks off a lot of others. A good way to hide something forever is to mail it via any of a number of European or Asian postal services. Italy comes immediately to mind.

And with all THAT said, the team of internet and commercial package delivery has all but totally assumed every function for which I once relied on The Post Office - including the purchase of postage. Times do change.

[zeugma]

Q) Why is the cost of postage going up?

A) Storage.

(Drum fill)

[Eepsy]

I think the USPS is one of the best deals around, even with a 2 cent increase. My only two beefs are:

1) What do they have against round numbers?

and

2) Why does it always happen after Christmas? Drives me nuts, that does.