On Monday, the Washington Post ran an article whose title posed a question: Should the Postal Service be Sold to Save it? In a word: No. The piece identified symptoms of the Postal Service’s decline, but failed to correctly diagnose the underlying cause: The Postal Service Reform Act, a bill requiring the Postal Service to set aside all of the money it will spend on retirement for employees retiring in the next 75 years—most of whom haven’t been hired and some haven’t been born. Most importantly, the article’s focus on a prescription for privatization is wrong and ignores research challenging the notion that privatization is a more efficient, cheaper cure-all. Privatization will kill the Post Office, not save it. Privatization will also ensure corporate interests swoop in to profit from the 231 years USPS has spent serving Americans.
Since 1775 we have relied on postal workers to deliver our mail. From the beginning, when Benjamin Franklin was Postmaster General and letters were delivered via pony, to today where over 500,000 postal workers deliver our packages via the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world, the post office has been there, rain or shine. Few institutions have done more to increase equality in America than the United States Post Service.
Jobs at the Post Office were one of the first opportunities for African Americans to obtain gainful employment following the Civil War. Newly enfranchised African Americans were hired by the Post Office as postmasters, clerks, and letter carriers. In 1903, a decade before Rosa Parks was born, President Roosevelt stood by African American postal workers and stopped Mississippi from removing African American postmasters.
Increasing racial equality isn’t the only way USPS works to make ours a more perfect nation: women have been working at the Post Office since the 1800s. Today, the Post Office is one of the leading employers of minorities and women—39 percent of Postal Service employees are minorities and 40 percent are women. In the early 1900s President Roosevelt said that “all Americans deserve a square deal” and the Postal Service has been integral in our progress towards equality of opportunity.
Unfortunately, the Postal Service is under attack from those who don’t like the progress it represents. These people seek to paint an inaccurate picture of the Postal Service, namely accusing it of being inefficient and a waste of tax dollars. This simply isn’t true.
The Postal Service delivers half of the world’s mail. It’s an efficient, reliable, and trusted institution that FedEx, UPS, and Amazon consistently rely on to meet their customer’s demands. Unlike some of the world’s biggest corporations, the Postal Service receives zero tax dollars for operating expenses and is entirely funded by the sale of postage products and services.
Let’s remember why the Postal Service is in trouble.
In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Reform Act, which requires USPS fully pre-fund 75 years of retiree health care benefits in 10 years with an annual $5.5 billion payment. No other agency is subject to such a demand and very few private businesses operate this way. Unsurprisingly, the Post Office has found it difficult to find the funds necessary to pre-fund retirement plans 75 years out.
The Postal Reform Act also made it impossible for the Postal Service to find creative ways to come up with the money to pay for retirement plans. For example, the USPS Inspector General proposed a plan for post offices to begin providing basic financial products, like checking accounts and small loans. My colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) notes this would help the 68 million Americans who currently have no checking or savings account because fifty-nine percent of internally managed Post Offices are in zip codes with zero or one bank branch. Allowing the Post Office to provide financial products could help folks in rural communities and provide the revenue it needs to meet its prefunding requirement.
But the Postal Reform Act prevents the Postal Service from providing “any new non-postal services” and it’s unclear whether it has the authority to offer these services. In fact, instead of utilizing the rural Post Offices, Republicans in Congress are shutting them down.
Closing Post Offices disproportionately hurts the same communities the Postal Service served when no one else would. 90 percent of the 3,830 post offices slated for closure are in poor rural areas. Closing all of the nearly 4,000 Post Offices currently on the chopping block would save only $295 million a year. Former Postmaster General William Henderson called it "not even a drop in the bucket. The bucket won't ripple."
Since 1775, the United States Postal Service has pushed our nation forward. The Postal Service is why African Americans were able to put food on the table and get promotions when nobody else would hire them. The Postal Service is where women received equal pay for equal work, long before the law required it. The Postal Service is the reason so many businesses can reliably send mail every day.
People are deliberately trying to destroy the Post Office. Those in favor of privatizing the Postal Service act as if privatization is the cure all for USPS’ Congressional made problems. Privatizing the Postal Service is not only bad for workers; it is at odds with the Constitution, and our pursuit of equality. It’s time to stand up to these forces and defend postal workers and the United States Postal Service. I believe that the Postal Service deserves a square deal and stand ready to give them the tools they need.
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