USPS' cost cuts come with a price: Slower mail
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The U.S. Postal Service has slowed down mail deliveries so much it's failing to meet even its lowered performance targets, a new report from the Government Accountability Office found.
Why it matters: The Postal Service is part of the connective tissue of American life: delivering prescription drugs and ballots, carrying government notices and bills, helping businesses reach customers across the country.
- Now its attempts to shore up its finances are disproportionately affecting rural communities.
The big picture: The Postal Service has given itself more time to deliver some first-class mail, the congressional watchdog's report notes, which millions of Americans rely on for medications, bills, paychecks, financial documents and mail-in ballots.
- The USPS is expected to fund itself largely through postage and other revenue while also providing universal service to nearly every U.S. address, even where doing so isn't profitable.
By the numbers: The USPS added one to two days to expected delivery times for some mail after shifting some transportation from air to ground in 2021.
- The report said about 24,000 post offices will lose afternoon mail collection if they're more than 50 miles from a regional processing and delivery center, disproportionately affecting rural Americans.
The intrigue: The service concerns come just weeks before the midterms, when millions of voters will rely on USPS to return ballots under state-specific deadlines.
- The Trump administration has pushed to dramatically overhaul the country's mail-in ballot system.
What they're saying: "Whenever the post office closes … for rural communities, that takes the heart out of the place," Steve Hutkins, editor of Save the Post Office, tells Axios.
- "Everybody talks about how slow the mail is now. … The goalposts have moved several times," he said, adding that delivery times have slowed four times since 2010. "It all adds up."
- "The problem is if you want to cut costs to try to balance the books, you're going to cut services one way or another, and services usually means how fast the mail is moving, or whether there's a post office in your town."
Case in point: Residents of one Phoenix neighborhood told Axios they sometimes went days or weeks without mail, leading to missed bills, checks and wedding invitations.
Zoom in: Mark Jamison, a former postmaster in a small North Carolina town, tells Axios, says the decades-long push to operate the Post Office like a business has come at the expense of delivery service.
- "[I]n the age of ecommerce," he said, the Postal service acts "as a hedge against the delivery monopolies of UPS, FedEx, and Amazon."
- "The failure to understand the postal system as an essential infrastructure while trying to cram it into an ill-fitting, profit oriented, corporate model has caused serious damage to the infrastructure and been a great disservice to the American people."
The other side: A USPS spokesperson pointed Axios to the agency's comments in the GAO report.
- "The Postal Service is well positioned to close the fiscal year strong, meet our higher target for first class mail on-time performance, and enter FY27 with significant momentum to set us up for a strong holiday mailing and shipping season."
What we're watching: The GAO recommended the postmaster general explain how the agency plans to improve in its 2027 strategic plan update — and the office agreed.
Go deeper: USPS whistleblower warns new ballot system could fail
