In the waning days of the 119th Congress, as all members of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate go home to assert that their legislative productivity warrants their re-election, it’s doubtful that much will be done to help the Postal Service resolve its business and financial woes.
Members of Congress and their staffs (should) have been using data available from the Postal Service, the Postal Regulatory Commission, and industry sources to get a clear picture of postal volume, revenue, and expense numbers – and what that infers about future legislative action.
Perhaps it’s just as well that little if anything may be done; the complex issues involved – such as (re)defining – and financing – the Universal Service Obligation, rationalizing the funding of future retiree benefits, and reworking how the Postal Service’s Treasury accounts are invested – deserve thoughtful and deliberate consideration.
Naturally, when the 120th Congress is seated in January, hope for resolving those and other important matters will emerge into the withering glare of political expediency.
The easier numbers
In the course of not acting on important legislation, members of Congress still remain attentive to the little things that keep them popular back home. Issues that constituents raise are a big deal for them, even if they matter not at all elsewhere, and so require some degree of responsive action by the politician.
Where postal matters and hometown complaints typically intersect is about ZIP Codes. In the 119th Congress, about two dozen or so bills were filed having to do with ZIP Codes, including those directing the Postal Service to adopt new ones for specific locations. One bill, S.3175, the CIPZIP Act of 2025, would go so far as establishing a formal administrative process for submitting and resolving local requests to add a ZIP Code or redefine what one covers.
Purposes
Unfortunately, as much as citizens want to have their ZIP Code issues satisfied, and as much as politicians want to please, they all forget why there are ZIP Codes in the first place.
Postal historians will note the origins of the ZIP Code were the zone numbers used to identify sections of US cities about a hundred years ago. Typically, the zone number, placed between the city and state in the address, referred to the delivery unit, such as a station or branch in a city (e.g., Chicago 6, Illinois). The Post Office Department formally organized the zone system in 1943, establishing it in 124 large cities as a way to assist mail distribution by new workers replacing experienced clerks who’d left to serve in the military.
When the 5-digit ZIP Code was adopted in 1963, the scheme was simple: the first digit represented a state or states, the next two identified a processing facility, and the last two defined a destination post office it served. As time passed, additional numbers were added (the +4) to refer to a single post office box or a segment of a delivery route.
What that historical vignette illustrates very clearly is that postal codes – by whatever name – were implemented for the sole purpose of facilitating mail distribution.
Circling back to the efforts of politicians to satisfy constituents’ requests for ZIP Codes, the local angst arises not from the ZIP Code per se but from how the ZIP Code has been appropriated for non-postal uses. Other delivery companies, utilities, government agencies, insurance companies etc. have all adopted the ZIP Code for their own purposes.
As a result, using a ZIP Code to define a locality for tax or insurance risk reasons can cause some residents to be included or excluded or charged a different rate. The legal boundaries of a city may be smaller and not contiguous with the larger area that uses the city name as part of postal addresses. With that in mind, what should also be clear is that this is a square-peg-and-round-hole problem. The source of constituents’ gripes isn’t actually the ZIP Codes (the square pegs) – meant solely for use in postal distribution – but how other entities have chosen to jury rig their use for other reasons (the round holes). Therefore, the more appropriate resolution would be for those entities to revise how they define their geographic areas, or amend their use of the ZIP Code, rather than asking the Postal Service to add or redefine ZIP Codes for non-postal purposes.