Nov 14 2008
The Economy Hits The Postal Service
According to a November 14th New York Times article, the Postal Service is suffering with a $2.8 billion loss this fiscal year. There are two main causes for this problem. First, despite earning a $2.7 billion net operating income in 2008, they also owed $5.6 billion for a retirement benefit fund. Second, profits would have been larger, but the mail being sent has been down by 9.5 billion items, due to the economy. Cuts in hours and overtime are expected, but no layoffs. But for how long? Will postage prices rise to save jobs?
It is possible to ease the situation without the loss of jobs or increase of prices, in addition to what the Postal Service has outlined. The retirement benefit seems to be causing a strain currently. I am not saying cut it out, because those workers earned their retirement. Reassessing the program, however, may be in order to make sure there are no holes which are causing unnecessary losses. In this time of economic hardships, make sure those who truly earned it are getting it, not the freeloaders. As far as the problem of less mail being sent, what can I say? Do your civic duty and buy a stamp! I do not feel as though it is just because of the economy that the mail being sent is in the decline. The web is taking over. Nevertheless, the Postal Service is very important. Save a buck when you can in this hard time, but realize that you may lose a privilege for yourself and others if you do not make a trivial civic sacrifice now.
