Postal Service To Discontinue Mail Delivery on Saturdays; Johnston Reacts

Beginning in August, Johnston residents might be seeing less of the postman.

Calling the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model “no longer sustainable,” the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday it will eliminate Saturday delivery of mail by Aug. 5.

The plan to change delivery from six days a week to five would only affect first-class mail. Packages, mail-order medicines, priority and express mail would still be delivered on Saturdays. The local post office, 5874 Merle Hay Road, will remain open for business Saturdays.

While the change may seem minimal, the cost savings is estimated to be nearly $2 billion a year.

Still some residents feel the change is only a band-aid for a serious problem.

"...but I doubt they will actually carry through with it," Jason Meredith, wrote on Johnston Patch's Facebook page. "An alternate solution, charge reasonable fees for the services you are providing...failing to raise the price of first class mail to $0.50 a decade ago is the root of their problem."

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the reasons are continued economic struggles and the increasing use of the Internet for communications and bill paying by consumers. The U.S. Postal Service is also the only federal agency required to pre-fund health benefits for retirees, and those costs are escalating quickly.

Saturday is the lightest mail delivery day by volume and many businesses are closed on Saturdays, according to the U.S. Postal Service. However, many residents receive print magazines and ads on Saturdays in the mail that may be shifted to another day.

A Rasmussen poll on mail delivery in 2012 showed “Three-out-of-four Americans (75%) would prefer the U.S. Postal Service cut mail delivery to five days a week rather than receive government subsidies to cover ongoing losses.”

A USA Today/Gallup poll in 2010 found the majority of U.S. residents surveyed were ok with eliminating Saturday delivery. The March 2010 telephone survey of 999 adults revealed people age 55 and older were more likely than younger people to have used the mail to pay a bill or send a letter in the past two weeks.

What do you think? Will the change fix the Postal System?