August 11, 2025
Issue 25/06
The leading voice for nonprofits on postal issues for over 45 years.
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The Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers is a 501 (c)(4) nonprofit organization established by nonprofits for nonprofits.
David Steiner expresses initial allegiance to his predecessor’s plan
In his remarks at his first USPS Board of Governors meeting on Friday, August 8, Postmaster General David Steiner clearly expressed his initial support for his predecessor Louis DeJoy’s Delivering for America plan:
“Since my first day as Postmaster General, I’ve been evaluating the strategies and programs of the strategic plan that’s in place. Although only three weeks into my tenure, my initial conclusion is that the 10-year plan positions the postal service to be on the right path,” he said. “The strategy is sound, now we have to execute.”
Steiner then appeared to indicate that employee involvement is the most important tool to bring the plan to success:
“But we can’t execute unless all of our team is working together. We all need to be rowing the oars in the same direction. That means getting buy in from all levels of the organization; holding each other responsible for executing the strategy; and sharing the rewards of the strategy with our employees. So, I intend to serve as a strong advocate for our employees and would ask each and every one of our employees to be a strong advocate for our customers. Together, we will identify lasting solutions and shape a stronger, better outlook for the Postal Service.”
Of course, the Alliance and just about every other serious participant in the mailing business have repeatedly pointed out the abject failure of DeJoy’s plan. It has failed to bring the financial and service stability that DeJoy promised when he released the plan in March 2021. In many ways, it seems to be making things worse by driving away mail volume with record rate increases twice a year, constant diminution of both service standards and performance, excluding long-time private sector partners, and investment of mailers’ funds in massive new package processing facilities that might not be needed.
Postal Service CFO Luke Grossman, who reported another astounding quarterly loss, this time $3.1 billion, joined Steiner in advocating more of the same, somehow predicting that it will lead to much better results:
“While the Postal Service continues to face financial challenges, we are an organization pursuing continuous improvements and innovation. We remain focused on moving toward financial sustainability through operational efficiency, product strategies that will generate growth, and pricing adjustments.”
It’s hard to envision continuous improvement reversing monthly billion-dollar losses.
Despite mailers’ deep disappointment in a business-as-usual new PMG, it’s not too surprising. Steiner was hired by a board that fully supports the DeJoy plan. This came after a hiatus from full-time work since 2016, following his resignation as CEO of Waste Management Corporation, a position he held starting in 2004. He’s been briefed over the last few weeks by staff who were put in place because they support the plan. If he does realize and articulate that the current plan won’t work, it could take him a while. Certainly, mailers are lined up to meet with Steiner and let him know about the realities they are facing.
Steiner’s “initial” assessment of the current course of the Postal Service may change as he has time to hear from more points of view than just those that see little beyond the Delivering for America plan.
Governor states opposition to the PRC plan to limit USPS to once-a-year rate hikes
We know that postal lawyers have been writing briefs before the Postal Regulatory Commission opposing the regulator’s modest proposal to limit the USPS to rate hikes once a year for at least five years. In an unusual twist, the lawyers apparently convinced USPS Governor Ron Stroman to read a statement urging the PRC to lay off its attempt to tighten its regulations a bit, as the regulator considered the reply comments it received last week.
Stroman repeated the well-worn contention that the regulator should trust a small group of part-time appointees, the Governors of USPS, to make all decisions related to postal price increases. The Postal Service’s approach since Congress converted USPS to a price cap regime in 2006 has been to argue for no pricing regulation at all. The no-limits approach relies on the idea that up to nine (currently five) presidential appointees who are paid $30,000 a year will bring enough expertise and consideration of all points of view to make wise pricing decisions that affect all American organizations, businesses, and households. It also wants us to believe that the Governors will ot rubber stamp the monopolist approach of management.
The USPS strategy seems to be that if it consistently advocates no pricing regulation, it will intimidate the regulator into very limited controls. What was very unusual last week was to hear a USPS Governor extend that strategy to a statement read at an open board meeting.
We said in our reply comments filed with the PRC last week:
The First Law of Holes states: “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” The Postal Service is in a hole. Under the current ratemaking system, the Postal Service has enacted seven market dominant price increases in four years. Five of them have exceeded inflation, some of them by an order of magnitude. The compounded impact of these increases on captive mailers has been enormous.
With the enhanced pricing freedom that the current system has afforded it, the Postal Service has lost more and more money each year, become less efficient, collapsed service, and hastened volume loss. This is ample evidence that the current, more USPS-permissive system is not achieving the statutory objectives. As the Commission has found, “declines in the Postal Service’s financial situation, volume, and service performance, have remained significant, if not worsened, since the implementation of the Modified Ratemaking System.”
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The needed turnaround of the U.S. Postal Service cannot get off the ground until its leaders abandon their cult-like adherence to Louis DeJoy’s plan, including the fantasy of a major government monopoly setting prices without independent regulation.
USPS financial results validate that the plan is not working
The dual United States Postal Service strategy to milk monopoly mail with major rate hikes while investing heavily in an end-to-end network to grow the competitive package side is not working.
In June 2025, monopoly mail volume was down by 2.3% and revenue grew by only 0.2%. Year-to-date monopoly mail volume was down by 2% and revenue was up by only 1.8% or $608.7 million.
June’s competitive package volume plummeted by 6.8% and revenue was flat. YTD package volume was down 4.3% and revenue grew only 1.6% or $404.7 billion.
YTD total operating revenue was reported to be up only $910.4 million or 1.5%. YTD total operating expenses were up $1.0 billion or 1.6%.
The 3rd quarter loss was $3.1 billion, and the 9-month year-to-date loss was $6.2 billion versus $6.1 billion in the same period last year. When you subtract non-cash workers’ compensation, for an apples-to-apples comparison, the losses were $2.8 billion for Q3 and $5.6 billion YTD, worse than $5.1 billion in the same period last year.
The Postal Service is on track to lose a similar amount to the $9.5 billion it lost last year, despite its profitable first quarter that benefited from election mail.
Q3 10-Q: https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-results-reports/fy2025-q3.pdf
Famed conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. will be honored on a USPS stamp
The U.S. Postal Service will honor William F. Buckley Jr., a larger-than-life figure who helped define modern American conservatism as a writer, political commentator, and novelist, with a new stamp to be dedicated at Yale University. The first-day-of-issue event for the William F. Buckley Jr. commemorative Forever stamp will be held on Sept. 9.
The Postal Service must not get the irony of issuing a stamp honoring someone who would advocate the privatization of USPS were he still alive. As a leading figure in modern American conservatism, Buckley was a proponent of ideas that often align with privatizing government services and reducing the size of the federal government. His brother, Senator James Buckley, introduced on March 16, 1976, S.3144, a bill to amend title 39, United States Code, to increase, to the fullest degree possible, competition in the delivery of mail. The bill would permit the carriage of mail by private persons and allow such private carriers to deposit mail in, and collect mail from, post office boxes and letterboxes.
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