I don’t send out Holiday Cards anymore, and looking at my e-cards- it is certainly on the uprise! Then you read articles like the below from Newsweek- that writes about the postal office continuing to lose money. So how can the post office make money and trim costs? I had to check out what Postal Workers make first- to see if cutting salaries is a viable option. Based upon the below, doesn’t look good, although the benefit package of civil workers is phenomenal and worth thousands~
From Wiki How-Although current 2007 updated salary ranges of USPS carriers have not been released by the USPS the below figures from 2004 will give you a rough idea of the type of salary a carrier earns. Median annual earnings of Postal Service mail carriers were $44,450 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $37,590 and $50,580. The lowest 10 percent had earnings of less than $31,980, while the top 10 percent earned more than $54,240. Rural mail carriers are reimbursed for mileage put on their own vehicles while delivering mail. Median annual earnings of Postal Service clerks were $40,950 in 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $37,880 and $44,030. The lowest 10 percent had earnings of less than $36,040, while the top 10 percent earned more than $50,510. Median annual earnings of Postal Service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators were $39,430 in 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $36,240 and $42,620. The lowest 10 percent had earnings of less than $24,290, while the top 10 percent earned more than $44,540. Postal Service workers enjoy a variety of employer-provided benefits similar to those enjoyed by Federal Government workers. The American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association together represent most of these workers.
From –Newsweek-
“These are tough times for the U.S. Postal Service. It’s being pummeled by high fuel costs. The soft economy is crimping the overall volume of mail, which fell 5.5 percent in the past year. Its business is also falling as Americans opt for e-mail over birthday cards and thank-you notes. Now comes another threat: consumers like Colleen Plimpton of Bethel, Conn. Earlier this year Plimpton became tired of the credit-card offers, catalogs and advertising fliers that clogged her mailbox. So in February she paid $20 to GreenDimes, a firm that helps consumers reduce their inflow of “junk mail” by contacting businesses on their behalf. “[Junk mailers] are cutting down trees willy-nilly, and that has got to stop,” says Plimpton.
To the post office, consumers like her are a serious threat. “Efforts to convince people not to receive mail are really going to hurt,” says Steve Kearney, a Postal Service senior vice president.
The Postal Service lost $1.1 billion in its latest quarter. That number would be even larger if it weren’t for direct mailings, which now constitute 52 percent of mail volume, up from 38 percent in 1990. Revenue from direct mail “is the financial underpinning of the Postal Service—it could not survive without it,” says Michael Coughlin, former deputy postmaster.
Both the Postal Service and the Direct Marketing Association say direct mail is a key source of customers for small businesses. “Advertising mail is a very valuable product to many consumers,” says Sam Pulcrano, Postal Service vice president for sustainability, who points to two-for-one pizza coupons as especially welcome surprises. To blunt opposition, the DMA recently launched the Mail Moves America coalition to lobby against the restrictions.
GreenDimes founder Pankaj Shah isn’t sympathetic. Not only is his company providing a service to consumers, he says, but it has also used its fees to plant more than 1 million trees. “We’re all about giving consumers choice, not about bringing down the post office,” he says. Still, as more consumers opt out of junk mail, rain, sleet and gloom of night may seem like the least of mail carriers’ problems.”
So what do we do to keep a valuable organization in place? Many people including older folks don’t have access to the Internet, they enjoy sending cards and gifts by mail. They pay and receive checks by mail. I know of one lady, who enjoys her trip to the post office. So what is the solution? Postal workers, good or bad do serve a much needed service, yet we the taxpayer continue to pay for the deficient- and that I don’t want!
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