Mark me down for it’s “Crazy Cheap To Send a Letter in the US”. I just wish we could get to a nice round number for stamps (.50, .75) then just raise it a quarter every so often. These .42 and .47 rates are stupid
I’m 45, I think the price of cards is insane. I look for 99-cent cards because the idea of spending $3.99 on paper that’s going to be thrown away makes me cranky.
That said, I have no problem with the price of stamps. Half-a-buck sends my cheap card *hundreds * sometimes thousands of miles away.
The price of postage is too low. That’s why they are losing money hand over fist. *Our *money. If the USPS was required to actually break even, they would have to jack up rates so high that FedEx would put them out of business.
“It now costs 45 cents to send my son a $5 bill for his birthday! Outrageous!”
The Master speaks. (possibly a bit dated)
Those rates don’t seem stupid for business customers, which drive the vast majority (90%+) of priority mail.
Human minds don’t really handle inflation very well. It’s not that we’re incapable at doing the calculation, it’s that we use cognitive shortcuts and tend to think of money as a discrete real thing that doesn’t change in value (as opposed to an abstract mathematical/economic concept). So we tend to fixate on nominal prices. At average inflation rates in the US, prices double every 20 years or so. That’s slow enough that young people don’t have a really strong fixation on prices from their youth, and while they notice that prices increase, they’re probably making way more money than they did as kids, so it doesn’t matter as much. But by the time you’re 65, you can just about remember three doublings. At 70, stuff costs 10 times as much as it used to! Outrageous!
So, that’s why old people complain about the prices of things. Our brains suck at math.
Jeeze! Compare it to the price of anything else! Gasoline! Candy bars. Comic books. A can of Coca-Cola. All of these have increased far, far, far more than the price of first class postage has.
Some guys don’t know when they’ve got it good!
Construction paper and crayons; enough to make dozens of cards?
I can send a thousand letters (emails) for free (or at least as a negligible part of my internet bill) to Hawaii each minute and it arrives at the speed of light.
First class mail stamps are dinosaurs..
We (Americans) do have a good deal on this. In comparison to what people in other countries have to pay, and I think also in comparison to what other small items cost, etc., it’s probably as cheap as it’s ever been.
Like most other developed countries, there was a tremendous amount of inflation from about the early 1960s into the 1980s, and a lot of us do remember a letter costing only a dime or so. If, as ftg’s link shows, the price was 5c in 1963, then I think today’s price of 45c is well under what we should have expected given inflation.
For an unusual perspective, consider the fact the short-lived $3 gold coin of the 19th Century was intended partly for the purpose of buying 100 3c postage stamps at a time. Mailing 100 letters today costs far less than a similar amount of gold today, even without the recent run-up in gold prices.
Way too low. They should double the price of a First Class stamp. It’s definitely worth a buck or so to send a letter.
No one is paying those rates for Priority mail. That starts at $4-$5.
A while back, I came across a truly delightful (and true!) saying–
“Nostalgia is the ability to remember yesterday’s prices while forgetting yesterday’s wages.”
45c in the US is very low indeed, especially when you consider the size of the country. Here in the UK there was outrage when the prices were hiked earlier this year by 30% (for first-class mail) and almost 39% (for second-class). I don’t know why, seeing as the average family spends less than 50p a week on stamps.
A second-class stamp, which should get a letter anywhere in the UK within three days, is now 50p (80c). A first-class stamp, which should get it there next day, is 60p (95c). I don’t know why people would complain about 45c in the US - I would have thought $1 or even $2 would be more like it. What can you buy for a dollar these days?
I must admit, though, I did buy a couple of hundred pounds worth of stamps before the prices went up (they remain valid whatever the postage rate), as I use quite a lot of stamps selling items on Amazon and eBay. In fact, because of the way the pricing works out, it actually became cheaper to post a CD after the prices went up, as long as you’re using stamps bought at the old price:
Old price: £1.09, which equals two 1st class stamps at 46p each, plus 17p extra.
New price: £1.20, which equals two 1st class stamps bought at 46p, now worth 60p each, and no extra postage needed. Total cost to me, 92p. 
I guess the terminology that our postal systems use is not quite identical.
A First Class letter costs 45 cents for the first ounce (more if it is odd-shaped or has large dimensions) anywhere in the country. It is usually delivered in one to three days. Within a major metropolitan area, one day is normal, outside the immediate area 2 to 3 days is normal. But there is no guarantee.
If you want guaranteed next day delivery, you have to pay for Express Mail. That costs $12.95 to $28.00 for the first 8 ounces (depending on distance) or $18.95 if you use a special flat-rate envelope provide by the Post Office. This is guaranteed in that you can apply for a refund of postage if it is not delivered on time. (The guarantee is two days for some remote and hard-to-deliver areas.)
We don’t have the option of something like second-class mail for a discount. All other classes of mail can only be used for bulk machine-prepared mailings, printed materials (books, bound pamphlets), or merchandise. We used to have a class for newspapers and magazine mailings called Second Class, but that has been replaced by Periodicals Mail and restricted to bulk mailings.
I think it’s code phrase for “Get off my lawn!”
I want to embroider this on a pillow or print it on a t-shirt!
The USPS is making an operating profit. The reason they are losing money is that they are being required by Congress to fund retirement benefits very far in advance, more so than what any commercial company does.
Right - here’s your chance - round three thread in mpsims.