Rural post office consumers out of luck in 2011

The USPS will close 2,000 locations this year as part of a cost-cutting plan announced Monday. Due to a law that restricts the Postal service from post office closings for budgetary reasons, the locations targeted in 2011 are considered branches, or stations instead. Slashing costs to stem losses has not worked so far for the USPS, which lost billions last year and is expected to lose billions more in 2011. They’ve been hanging on by a thread and could possibly be looking into short term loans to keep afloat. Article resource – Thousands of Postal Service closings announced for 2011 by MoneyBlogNewz.

Still seeing issues in the Postal Service

The Postal service plans on closing 2,000 places this year with 500 already started. There is expected to be the exact same amount of service within the United States to each and every part of the community. This is what the Postal service is needed to do by law. About $8.5 billion was lost within the 2010 fiscal year though. This is bad news. It was asked for an increase postage rates by the Postal Regulatory Commission. This was rejected though. The commission felt that poor management and waste was the reason for the USPS having a problem although the request said it was because of the recession and Internet competition. There has been a huge cut of Postal service employees. Just since 1999 there has been a one third cut. To cut costs, dropping Saturday delivery and closing smaller postal locations are on the table.

Ways increases can be made occur

With 2,000 postal locations in line for the chopping block in 2011, The USPS is re-evaluating another 16,000. This number represents 50 percent of the post offices within the United States that are running at a deficit. There’s a law that allows postal service closings only if there is an expired lease or maintenance problems to deal with instead of because they’re losing cash which the agency is intending to get changed be Congress. The Postal service has tried to explain the 32,000 locations are unneeded by the business after not being able to get a postage increase. These buildings were created when there was no e-mail, FedEx and United Parcel Service to replace it.

End of the postal period

In order to survive, the USPS will need more mail. Companies hardly send junk mail anymore, bills are paid online mostly and nobody writes letters anymore. Small towns and politicians really don't want the buildings to close down which is the only thing left to do. The argument is the USPS should not be able to shut down the mail system, and that it ought to stop giving so many benefits to employees first.

Information from

Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094000352599050.html

CNN Money

money.cnn.com/2011/01/24/news/economy/postal_service_close/?npt=NP1

USA Today

content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/us-postal-service-set-to-begin-closing-2000-post-offices/1