The USPS is Crucial for Business and Voting

This campaign has ended.

ASBN stands with businesses calling for the USPS to be fully funded and to put an end to harmful cost-cutting efficiencies enacted by the recently appointed postmaster general. The USPS provides a crucial service to all businesses, ensuring access to fair pricing through all geographic regions in the United States for its courier service. The USPS is also a critical institution for election voting, a bedrock of American democracy and a healthy economy, most especially important during an election year amid a health crisis. 

Nearly half the entire planet’s mail flows through the United States Postal Service. Both as a domestic and global courier service, the post office is an impressive and necessary institution and provides a critical service for businesses around the world. The USPS delivers to 160 million residential and business addresses six days a week, with an inclusive pricing model designed to meet the needs of all kinds of business budgets. 

While FedEx and UPS have an important place in our business landscape, these private couriers are simply cost prohibitive for many small businesses. The USPS provides every American address with the same equal service with equitable pricing. Additionally, FedEx ships 21% of their own packages on postal service trucks, exemplifying how even the largest of businesses rely on the USPS 

The USPS employs half a million full-time employees and another 100,000 part time employees. The USPS manages the largest truck fleet in America (almost a quarter million vehicles), at a time when trucking-related businesses are especially feeling the disruption of long-haul revenue streams. 

The postal service runs on revenue it makes from selling postage (not taxpayer money), and this year the losses the USPS have incurred have been due to regulatory, not business practice, constraints. Despite its far-reaching service, the USPS is not a federal agency, making the recent regulatory burdens and operational changes incongruous with the federal mandate. 

Most importantly, the USPS is an essential service during unprecedented crisis, and to hamstring this service during an election year is simply undemocratic. The ASBC supports all efforts to make voting safe during this pandemic and encourages all its stakeholders to engage with their elected officials on this matter.