Postal changes will harm rural America

The US postal service is expecting rural consumers to pay first class rates for economy class service.

This week, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced plans to allow slower mail delivery in coming months for long distance and rural services.

What this means for consumers is that despite paying an ever-increasing amount for postage, it will take even longer for mail to be delivered. Locally, it already takes the better part of a week for mail to mosey from Medford to exotic locales like Rib Lake, but for DeJoy, that is unsustainably speedy.

Under DeJoy’s latest scheme to undermine public faith in the Postal Service, only people who live within 50 miles of the postal service’s largest processing facilities would be able to expect anything resembling speedy service. With these processing facilities located in larger urban centers, this leaves vast areas of rural America, including much of Wisconsin, facing further postal slowdowns.

DeJoy justifies sticking it to consumers in rural America by painting a picture of the Postal Service as being in an ongoing existential crisis and working to be competitive against private sector package delivery companies such as UPS and FedEx.

“We’re trying to save the Postal Service — not figuratively, not to advocate for something. We’re trying to literally save the Postal Service,” he told reporters with the Washington Post.

This is the same tired tune that DeJoy has sung since he was appointed Postmaster General in 2020. DeJoy’s leadership of the USPS has been marked by ever-increasing costs for consumers, steadily decreasing service standards for mail delivery, sweetheart deals for online retailers such as Amazon, and a general lack of understanding of the fundamental purpose of the postal service as a service to the American people.

Instead DeJoy has repeatedly allowed his corporate-centered short-sightedness to shine through by answering declines in service with cuts and with the dismantling of mail delivery infrastructure, further driving away potential consumers. DeJoy’s answer to complaints about delivery times is to repeatedly move the goalposts.

Under the latest scheme, the Postal Service would allow mail and packages to sit at certain facilities for an extra day instead of transporting them immediately for processing and delivery and extend “acceptable delivery times” for mail traveling longer distances.

National Newspaper Association Chair John Galer, who represents NNA on the USPS Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, said the announcement will draw attention to USPS’ current failures and cause the public to have even less confidence in its Postal Service.

“The plan is offered in the name of costcutting. In reality, it is just the same old story, one of inefficiency and unreliability,” said Galer, who is also publisher of The Journal-News in Hillsboro, Illinois.

There is no doubt that the Postal Service needs to change and adapt as the volumes of first class mail decline. However, there is a vast difference between adapting and maintaining service standards and the circling the drain policies that have been put in place under DeJoy’s leadership.

Congress must step up and demand answers and push for a leadership change to one that recognizes the value and continued importance of the Postal Service and ensures quality service to customers in both rural and urban areas.