Ok everyone knows if it wasn’t for junk mail (asked for or not)l and packages the USPS wouldn’t need to exist anymore
Well, why not be able to just opt out of getting anything but packages?
or just maybe a once-a-week delivery if youre one of the few that still writes and does letters ?
Because lots of important stuff is still sent by 1st class mail, including many financial and government documents.
Umm, they already skip right past your house if you don’t have mail so how would your once-a-week delivery help if 75.0654% of your street still gets mail daily?
I mostly get junk mail ( and of course packages) - but at least once or twice a week I get non-junk mail. Maybe it’s a bill from a one-off sort of place ( for example the lab that did my blood test ) , maybe it’s a credit or debit card, maybe it’s from someplace that doesn’t use email for all purposes ( my doctor’s office will email with appointment reminders, but bills come snail mail). Even if I were able to opt out of getting anything except packages, or choose once-a- week delivery it’s not likely to save USPS much money. Because chances are of the 50 or so houses on my block, only one or two will opt out - and as long as the carrier is walking past my house , not dropping any mail in my box is saving a few seconds at best
I think it would help the USPS if you and your neighbors agreed to use cluster boxes rather than individual streetside ones. Or if a substantial percentage of the populace opted for PO boxes.
Around here (nw chicago), they’ve opted out for us. For the past year or so, we’ve only been getting mail 2 or 3 times a week. Before that we’d always get something every day, even if it was just junk mail. Frankly, we’re never expecting anything so urgent that a day or three matters.
Sometimes, we’ll get a package from USPS, but not the mail for that day.
I’m in the near western suburbs of Chicago, and over the past few years, I’ve noticed that there are some days that we don’t get mail (which was a very rare event in the past).
I do not know if it’s a case that there are days when there is not, in fact, any mail for us (even junk mail), and that the mail carrier is simply skipping our house while delivering to their route, or if it’s that there are occasional days when the carrier or the local post office is skipping delivery to entire routes or blocks, due to short staffing or whatever.
I do know that there are some days in which we get mail delivery, but not until after 5pm, which suggests to me that there may be staffing issues.
We still get as many paper statements as possible sent by mail. Let them pay for the printing of the paper. If they charge for that “service” then we suck it up and print our own statements sent by email/a web site, or what have you.
I think you can opt into weekly delivery, sort of. USPS has a vacation hold service, and you could just ask them to hold your mail every week and deliver it on one day. I don’t think that it will make any difference in their logistics if some random people do that, since it won’t be coordinated.
Cute talking point, but it’s false. Here’s a Vox article from 2020 that explains who relies on the USPS and why. Prescriptions, social security checks, voting…people rely on the USPS for all this and more.
“The USPS is legally required to deliver all mail, to all postal addresses in all regions, at a flat rate, no matter how far it may have to travel. The service’s accessibility and affordability are especially important to rural communities that live in poverty and to people with disabilities, who can’t afford the cost of a private business to deliver their daily necessities.“
Not to mention the magazines that stubbornly persist, and get delivered by the tens or hundreds of millions.
I would not mind if the PO cut down to twice or three times a week. I still get some bills, statements from the government (including where and when to vote), magazines (including the New Yorker once a week) and other things, mostly charitable solicitations. I have told them that we make donations only once a year to each one, but they continue to bug me.
In order to save any money from this idea, the post office needs to make sure that the mail for once-a-week delivery addresses stays in the building, and does not get put onto the delivery truck. In other words, an entirely new step needs to be added to their system: sort the stuff that does get delivered today from the stuff that does not get delivered today.
My WAG is that the costs of adding this step will totally wipe out whatever savings you might have imagined.
I believe they have already limited the number of days they deliver to my house. I signed up for the service where you get an email with scans of things you are going to receive that day and they often don’t show up till the next day (and I believe that those days we receive nothing). We don’t receive a lot of mail so I haven’t confirmed this. I should start paying attention. I think this is DeJoy’s master plan of lowering service.
Well, when Kramer tried to opt out of the mail it didn’t go well for him.
