There’s an old expression to the effect that “If you’re a hammer, every problem is a nail.” In other words, people tend to view a problem, and approach its solution, in the context of their own experience. Applying this to the Postal Service, former postmaster general Louis DeJoy was a trucking guy, experienced in moving full trucks of boxes from…
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On November 24, the Postal Service published Postmarks and Postal Possession, its final rule about postmarks and their meaning. While the document seeks to clarify that postmarks don’t mean what many Americans might think, it’s fifty years too late in doing so. Moreover, given its association with the Regional Transportation Initiative, it contaminates a simple statement with other more subjective…
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Following the November 13-14 meeting of the Postal Service’s Board of Governors, the agency announced a loss of $8.98 billion for Fiscal Year 2025, less than the $9.5 billion loss in FY 2024, but also much less than the $2.1 billion surplus forecast in former PMG Louis DeJoy’s 10-Year Plan. Revenue and volume Total revenue for the year increased 1.15%…
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Although there’s no transcript of a conversation, later events suggest that, at some point early in his tenure, former postmaster general Louis DeJoy asked why there were uniformed police circulating around USPS HQ. Many companies have security guards, usually sourced from any of a variety of private companies, so it might have seemed curious to DeJoy that the Postal Service…
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Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer. One such occasion was at the recent meeting of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee. In a session that included a presentation about USPS service performance, the presenter showed charts (like the one above) that, among other data, compared service in late September 2025 to what it was a year earlier. After looking…
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Workshops begin October 14, 2025. Registration is open. Despite the value of such a program, employee development is sometimes well down the to-do list of commercial mail producers. To help company executives better understand why developing future managers is a wise practice, and a good investment, please consider these points: In short, for small businesses – where resources are tight…
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Traditionally, a postmark would provide evidence of timely mailing, and would be critical to ensuring mailed-in ballots are accepted by election officials. However, both voters and the agencies that oversee elections are concerned that ongoing Postal Service operational changes may eliminate postmarks or end their relevance to when a ballot was mailed. For example, as reported September 26 by the…
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In the July 14 issue of Mailers Hub News we initiated an award – the bull trophy – that would be given to the Postal Service when it makes an announcement that is no more than transparent spin, or issues a proposal that is egregiously self-serving, and thus worthy of being equated to what the trophy animal produces. We’re making…
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The Postal Service’s attitude toward the Postal Regulatory Commission became more confrontational and dismissive under the tenure of former postmaster general Louis DeJoy, and apparently continues to be so even now that he’s gone. Background Docket SS2022-1, Special Study on Issues Related to Flats Operations, was opened on July 14, 2022, to fulfill a requirement of the Postal Service Reform…
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Deep in an appropriations bill passed by the 52nd Congress on March 3, 1893, was the clause “For free-delivery service, including existing experimental free-delivery offices, eleven million two hundred and fifty-four thousand nine hundred dollars, of which the sum of ten thousand dollars shall be applied under the direction of the Postmaster-General to experimental free-delivery in rural communities other than…
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