USPS Office of Inspector General

Another holiday season, another massive surge in package volume. This year will be bigger than the last – which was a record-breaking year. It may be an understatement to say the dramatic growth in online shopping continues unabated.

Location, location, location – it's the mantra of realtors, of course, but is just as important to retailers and service providers, like the U.S. Postal Service. USPS understands the importance of being where people live and shop. It also knows that keeping hours conducive to people's shopping habits increases customer traffic. Cue contract postal units (CPUs), which the Postal Service uses to supplement its 32,000 post offices around the country.

Twenty years ago, E.R. was the number one TV show, Macarena topped the pop music charts, and Independence Day (the original) was the highest-grossing movie of the year. A stamp cost 32 cents, and, oh yes, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) was created.

On September 30, 1996, President Clinton signed the amended Inspector General Act of 1978 to establish a separate enforcement and oversight agency for the Postal Service, moving that responsibility to the newly created and fully independent OIG.

The American economy runs on trucks. Nearly 70 percent of all the freight tonnage in the United States moves on big rubber wheels. It's not an overstatement to say that without the trucking industry and its drivers, the economy would come to a crashing halt.

But the trucking industry faces a projected shortage of 46,000 drivers in the next 3 years. That's a tough situation under any circumstances, but factor in the continued growth of ecommerce, which is putting a greater number of trucks on the road, and that driver shortage is even more alarming.

At one time, it was called Third-Class Mail. Today, it's known as Standard Mail. In 2017, it will be called (USPS) Marketing Mail. The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a name change for Standard Mail to better signal to customers that this mail is used primarily to market a product or service.