Key Takeaways
• The USPS is implementing new service standards starting April 1, affecting roughly a quarter of first-class mail.
• The new standards will maintain the five-day service range for first-class mail while shortening delivery times for other mail types.
The USPS is implementing new “refined service standards” for first-class mail in an effort to save the struggling agency $36 billion over the next 10 years.
The changes will take effect on April 1, and will impact “first-class mail, periodicals, marketing mail, and packaging services (bound printed matter, media mail, and library mail),” according to a news release from USPS. A second phase of the plan will go into effect on July 1.
The goal is to enhance reliability while maintaining the five-day service range for first-class mail, while shortening the day ranges for marketing mail, periodicals and package services. This is all part of the USPS’s larger “Delivering for America Plan,” which the agency says has so far lowered annual transportation costs by $1.8 billion by cutting redundant service networks and streamlining various transportation methods.
“The Postal Service has been historically burdened by service standard regulations and onerous business rules that have not been appropriately adjusted to account for volume and mail mix changes, forcing costly and ineffective operations,” outgoing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in the press release. “For decades – and most specifically during the last three years – Congress has actively resisted operational solutions and meaningful change. By implementing the new standards and the operational initiatives to which they are aligned, we will be better able to achieve the goals of our modernization plans and create a high-performing, financially sustainable organization, which is necessary to achieve the statutory policies and objectives established for the Postal Service by law.”
The changes are believed to have only a minor impact when it comes to first-class mail. SI Live estimated that 75% of first-class mail would be delivered at the same rate that it is now, with 14% arriving more quickly and only 11% having a lower standard.
But it shows signs of tangible and achievable cost-cutting initiatives at the agency, which is dealing with plenty of uncertainty with the announcement that DeJoy would step down from his position and the rumors swirling that the Trump Administration would try to bring the USPS into the Department of Labor.
The USPS also specified in its release that it would soon release tools for customers to fully understand how long it would take their mail to reach its destination, and that retail locations and retail access wouldn’t be impacted by this change.
