It’s not uncommon for Congress to ask for our testimony on matters affecting the U.S. Postal Service. In fact, just last Wednesday, November 16, Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb Hull appeared before the House Subcommittee on Government Operations for a timely hearing entitled, “The Holiday Rush: Is the Postal Service Ready?”
When people think of the Postal Service, people think of, well, letters, magazines, catalogs, and parcels. Over the past decade, the Postal Service has handled more and more parcels, but the volume of the remaining products, often called traditional mail, has declined.
Increasingly, online shoppers are demanding faster shipping. Maybe you’re one of them. If so, then you’d probably like all e-tailers to oblige, regardless of size. But for small businesses to compete with larger competitors, they need help with quick and efficient logistics and fulfillment. That’s good news for the U.S. Postal Service.
Already an important segment of the Postal Service’s customer base, small businesses comprise an overwhelming majority of all businesses in the U.S., and their numbers have been growing, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given the significant role mailed ballots played during the 2020 general election — about half of all votes traveled through the U.S. Postal Service network — and the increased attention focused on voting by mail, we assessed the Postal Service’s readiness for the upcoming November mid-term elections.
The thought of mail traveling by rail conjures up a picture of railway mail clerks sorting letters as a train rolls along into the night. Traditional railway mail service ended long ago, fading away as the use of passenger rail diminished and new methods of sorting mail by machine arose. The last run of a Railway Post Office was in 1977.
