Old Ben Franklin set up the U.S. Postal Office Department in 1775. The Postmaster General was a cabinet-level position. He knew what he was doing because he had been George III's Postmaster for New Jersey. When he set up it, he said that it must always be a government monopoly, run off the general revenue of the federal government, and that it must deliver the mail to every state, territory, embassy, or other American soil for the same rate. This was intended to unify the country as it grew. All the first interstate roads were built by the Postal Department --- in fact, until the 50's they were called "Post Roads" and you still see street signs for "Old Post Road" in many cities.
It worked well for a very long time. When I was a kid (I am 66) we had 11 mail deliveries a week. The postman put your mail in a mailbox on your porch. And for many, many years postage was 1 cent for a postcard and 3 cents for a letter. And people complained about only having one delivery on Saturday.
But in 1970, under intense pressure from UPS, FedEx, DHL and others, Nixon created the U.S. Postal Service as an independent entity that was completely self-funded. He also ended the federal monopoly on mail delivery. Loopholes were created for the "parcel" delivery services --- technically UPS became a trucking company, FedEx became an airline, and DHL became a steamship company.
But worst of all, the parcel companies were allowed to cherrypick off the most profitable routes. About 90% of the area of the U.S. is not served by the parcel companies. 100% of the area is serviced by the USPS. The end effect of this was that the Post Office could no longer use the uniform rate requirement to balance delivering a letter across the street with delivering one to Point Barrow, Alaska. Try it for yourself --- try having a package or letter delivered by UPS or FedEx to Parmelee, South Dakota. Sorry, but they don't do it. They send you to the USPS.
So, as the USPS was faced with more and more of its profitable business being siphoned off by the parcel companies and deliveries going up in areas not served by UPS or FedEx, their rates began spiraling upwards.
If the government required that UPS and FedEx deliver to every place that the USPS delivers to, and for a uniform rate, postal rates would immediately become much, much lower on a level playing field and the USPS would suddenly become the most efficient and least cost without changing anything. Add into the mix a simple rate change that requires all commercial mailings (such as those annoying flyers that go straight to the trash) pay enough to cover the actual costs of delivery by removing the restrictions that effectively require the USPS to subsidize commercial mail and the USPS becomes more and more profitable, even though the volume would drop dramatically.
The USPS often gets a very bad rap in pay and benefits for postal workers. It is pretty dismal in reality. Since the pay rates are public information they are available in numerous places online --- go check them out.
Starting pay is $19 per hour, $39,520 per year, for part time flexible mail carriers --- few carriers get a full 40 hours a week, so their actual pay is considerably less. Mail handlers start at $13.92 per hour, $28,953 per year, and clerks start at $18.26 per hour, $37,980 per year. The average pay and benefits for career bargaining unit employees was $63,771 per year --- this is fully booked compensation and includes what is paid for their health insurance and other benefits. There are also Executive and Administrative Schedules for non- bargaining unit members, with pay ranging from $20,875 up to an authorized maximum of $108,166. These pay ranges are somewhat lower than federal civil service schedules.
We have one of the best postal systems in the world. There are logistics experts who measure performance and they rate the USPS as higher than either UPS or FedEx on an apples-to-apples comparison. They do things like mail recording seismographs to see how roughly packages are handled. And they track huge mailings and record every step of handling from pickup to delivery. In legitimate comparisons where all controlling factors are equal, the USPS outperforms both UPS and FedEx. This comes mainly from the additional handling cause by the UPS and FedEx "hub" systems. USPS mail and parcels tend to be handled far less.
What UPS and FedEx like to do is compare their total operating stats with the USPS total stats. They like to compare their One-Zone prices to the USPS uniform rate. This makes them look good and makes the Post Office look bad. But the next time you want to send a package to Max, North Dakota, be sure to stop at UPS first and then try FedEx before you take it to the Post Office.
Ben Franklin was a brilliant man and his creation of the Postal Department was well thought out and very effectively structured. Nixon on the other hand wanted contributions from UPS and FedEx and was willing to sabotage over 200 years of success in order to get them.
The only thing that I can find wrong with the operation of the Postal Department was that it made the Postmaster jobs a huge political patronage bonus for the President since it is he who appoints each and every Postmaster. There are too many Postmasters and many of these positions could be consolidated into area-oriented Postmasters instead of one or more for each zip code.
Right now, I think we could generate enough electricity to power the entire country if we could just tap into old Ben Franklin spinning in his grave as the uninformed and malicious remarks are made about his beloved Postal Department.
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