HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
GOINGPOSTAL
the dropping of Saturday delivery.
Seven in 10 Americans support
the idea if the savings will help
the agency survive, according to a
recent New York Times/CBS News
poll. But it will certainly make the
postal service less convenient.
The postal service has already
proposed changing its standards
for first class. Whereas a first-class
letter is expected to arrive within
one to three days, that benchmark
would be changed to two to three
days, eliminating overnight service. Cutting Saturday delivery
would make it even slower.
That could be inconvenient for
many and even problematic for
others, including those who receive
prescription medications by mail.
Tonda Rush, president of the
National Newspaper Association,
says her members worry that a diminished postal service won’t get
community papers to subscribers
before they’re yesterday’s news.
Diminished service aside, a
slimmed-down postal service
could have a dramatic effect on
the wider economy. As an American employer, the U.S. Postal Service ranks behind only the federal
government and Walmart, with
roughly 550,000 career employers on its payroll. (Postal service
employees often aren’t counted
among the federal workforce since
they aren’t paid by tax dollars.)
That’s to say nothing of the
wider mailing industry, which
would include catalog printers,
envelope manufacturers and direct-mail advertisers to name just
a few — an estimated 8 million
workers and more than $1 trillion
in business annually.
If the mail slowed, so could a
good chunk of the economy.
“We’re seeing an unraveling
of the basis of the system,” says
Rush. “Mail is like oxygen. It’s
there and you count on it, and you
don’t get worried about it until it
disappears. There is going to be
concern by a lot of people if this
goes away. The national concern is
going to be enormous.”
WAKE-UP CALL
Congress is expected to soon pass
legislation that will overhaul the
Tonda Rush,
president of
the National
Newspaper
Association,
speaks during
a Senate
hearing
in 2011.