U.S. Postal Service loses $5.1 billion
November 15th, 2011
02:56 PM ET

U.S. Postal Service loses $5.1 billion

The U.S. Postal Service reported an annual loss of $5.1 billion on Tuesday, as declining mail volumes and mounting benefit costs take their toll on the agency.

The Postal Service said in a statement that its losses would have been roughly $10.6 billion if Congress had not passed legislation postponing a $5.5 billion payment required to fund the agency's retiree health benefits.

Revenues from First-Class Mail, the Postal Service's largest and most profitable product, declined 6% from the previous fiscal year to $32 billion. Total mail volume declined by 3 billion pieces, or 1.7%.

"The continuing and inevitable electronic migration of First-Class Mail, which provides approximately 49 percent of our
revenue, underscores the need to streamline our infrastructure and make changes to our business model," Postal Service CFO Joe Corbett said in a statement accompanying the figures.

Over the past few months, the White House, lawmakers and the Postal Service have all come up with plans to save the post office. One of the more controversial proposals came from the postal agency itself, which included cutting Saturday service,

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soundoff (170 Responses)
  1. Tuck Bodi

    So Karl Rove is trying to convince Romney and Perry to dissolve the US Postal Service, if elected President. I think it's a good idea. In this day & age of electronic mail, who needs paper mail anymore, especially junk mail. And as Rove has hinted at, who cares about the loss of jobs, as we could always blame it on the fallout from Obama.

    November 16, 2011 at 3:59 pm | Report abuse |
    • MWB

      you dont work at the PO do you put yourself in my shoes unemployment already around 10% there are at least 220,000 letter carriers that doesnt even count mail handlers clearks ETC em emp/supv about 15/1 ups 30/1 fed ex bout the same wait till the next TA takes place on-line if it does where is all that eleltronic $ gonna go check prices for pkg del at ups for a sat around 10 bucks, and they wont even try to go to places they dont want to WAKE UP

      November 18, 2011 at 8:14 am | Report abuse |
  2. veronica

    Not surprised! Bureaucracy reigns, no matter how inefficient! They should privatize it and see it become effective.

    November 17, 2011 at 4:57 pm | Report abuse |
  3. Ronald Elrod

    The way I see it is, FEDEX or UPS should take over the postal service. Since FEDEX already handles the bulk of their package shipping, I say they should take it over. They could open retail stores like UPS has, with PO type mail boxes, as well as shipping packages, shipping supplies, printing services, and internet. All current postal employees could go to work for FEDEX (or UPS) to compensate for the extra work load.

    November 24, 2011 at 6:04 pm | Report abuse |
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