Solutions and next steps in saving the U.S. postal service

Published September 12, 2022 at 7:00 AM PDT

United States Postal Service mail carrier Frank Colon delivers mail amid the coronavirus pandemic in El Paso, Texas. (Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images)

This year, Congress actually came up with a solution to help the U.S. Postal Service.

A bipartisan bill passed that’s the biggest financial reform of the Post office since 2006.

“It was March of 2020. The Postal Service said, We’re going to run out of money if … Congress, can’t give us an emergency cash injection. … You guys need to do something structural with our accounts,” reporter Jacob Bogage says. “And this is that structural fix.”

The legislation is helping to pay off $57 billion in liabilities and save another $50 billion over the next 10 years. But will the changes be enough?

“What this did is it fixed the balance sheet. But the Postal Service Reform Act amounts to being a bailout without getting in the underlying structural reforms,” Paul Steidler, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, says.

Today, On Point: Successes and next steps in saving the U.S. postal service.

Guests

Jacob Bogage, reporter at the Washington Post covering business, the economy and the U.S. Postal Service. (@jacobbogage)

Paul Steidler, senior fellow of the Lexington Institute who researches, studies and discusses logistics and energy issues. He also addresses financial and operational policies pertaining to the U.S. Postal Service, supply chains, and transportation. (@PaulSteidler)

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.