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Postal Service, on ’tightrope,’ loses $15.9 billion in fiscal ’12
By Bloomberg News
This article was published November 15, 2012 at 8:43 a.m.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service said its net loss last year widened to $15.9 billion, more than the $15 billion it had projected, as mail volume continued to drop, falling 5 percent.
Without action by Congress, the service will run out of cash Oct. 15, 2013, after it makes a required workers compensation payment to the U.S. Labor Department and before revenue typically jumps with Christmas season mailing, Chief Financial Officer Joe Corbett said.
The service, whose fiscal year ended Sept. 30, lost $5.1 billion a year earlier. It announced the net loss Thursday at a meeting at its Washington headquarters.
“We are walking a financial tightrope,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said at the meeting. “Will we ever stop delivering the mail? It will never happen. We are simply too important to the economy and the flow of commerce.”
Comments on: Postal Service, on ’tightrope,’ loses $15.9 billion in fiscal ’12
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LevyRat says... November 15, 2012 at 9:10 a.m.
Mail volume down???? Go figure, I also heard that the demand for kerosene lamps and buggy whips has dropped as well. Only the US Postal service would not see this coming. Lap up those tax dollars.
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JIMBOB47 says... November 15, 2012 at 10:11 a.m.
Workers compensation payment? Can you spell OVERPAID-UNIONS-NO PRODUCTIVITY? Just like the state of California, the US Postal service has been going down the tubes for a long time and yet they can't take any corrective actions - CONTRACTS...UNIONS...
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BigBadDaddy says... November 15, 2012 at 12:36 p.m.
First of all cut out Saturday delivery. Secondly, quit giving away free boxes. Thirdly, contract out personnel to save on payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement, etc.
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dman says... November 15, 2012 at 12:54 p.m.
How can they go from losing $5 billion one year to a nearly $16 billion loss the next year?
Mail volume can't have dropped that much in one year.
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GAITOR says... November 15, 2012 at 12:56 p.m.
Right on track BBDaddy!!
Broken business plan. Never unsderstood free rural delivery. Should charge less for PO Boxes, and charge for rural delivery. Thus encouraging folks to pick-up their mail and not discouraging folks from picking it up, instead of paying a postal employee to deliver it.
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lazybar says... November 15, 2012 at 1:01 p.m.
king putt better bail them out,his supporters gonna be upset if they don`t get thier checks in the mail.
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Vickie55 says... November 15, 2012 at 1:41 p.m.
Continuing BigBadDaddy's post, fourth - quit spending money on advertising! It is very expensive to run ads on TV and radio, and it's not like people don't know the post office is there. And quit sponsoring events like the Tour de France. Again, people know where the post office is and what services it offers.
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Got2Kids says... November 15, 2012 at 2:34 p.m.
Should have closed several small offices per one of the original modified business plans. All the outcry that the poor and the elderly would not be able to mail a letter was just plain wrong, and simply designed to play on simpathies.
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HotSpringsLawyer says... November 15, 2012 at 7:21 p.m.
Don't believe Post Office currently receives any tax dollars.
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inquire says... November 15, 2012 at 9:48 p.m.
BigBadDaddy, outsourcing to avoid paying benefits is what is turning good jobs into bad ones, and eroding the middle class in this country. This will do the economy no good in the long term.
I saw an example of where this leads when my husband was last in the hospital. The oldest medical center in AR, long a public hospital, was sold to a for profit corporation. The entire departments of housekeeping, food service, and financial aid are now outsourced.
For many decades, the staff of this place had worked as one team, all got the same benefits, and all jobs were considered important. Almost everyone took pride in their jobs. No more. It shows in housekeeping the worst. You have to ASK to get clean sheets, even if there are obvious stains. Rooms don't get cleaned as well. Bags of soiled linens sit for as long as three days waiting for someone to collect them. If you want all the dirty dishes out of the room, you have to gather them and chase the cart they should be on. This seems to be in large part due to hiring so few people that it is not humanly possible to get it all done.
I met one woman who now works for an outside contractor who says her new insurance is crap, with a seven thousand dollar annual deductible.
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TigerInArk says... November 16, 2012 at 7:36 a.m.
The USPS could eliminate residential deliveries on every day except Monday and Friday. Most of the snail mail we get is junk mail.
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inquire says... November 16, 2012 at 6:21 p.m.
I think eliminating Saturday delivery would be more reasonable and disrupt fewer people. We get a lot of books and magazines, and some other merchandise, plus all our monthly bills. We have a post office box because we don't intend to put up another new mailbox just to be vandalized. It would not be practical to expect most people to have PO boxes. Soon they would be building on to the PO's to accommodate the increased demand for boxes.
There are still a lot of us left who refuse to do any business on line that requires entering a credit card or bank account number into the computer. We are good postal customers who buy stamps by the roll and mail gift packages.
Newspapers and the post office have something in common. All the economy measures they take hurt their loyal customers, not the customers who abandoned them.
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