USPS cuts Saturdays. Mail delivery ends Aug. 1
| Washington
The USPS will cut Saturdays聽but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says.
In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the postal service is expected to say the聽Saturdays mail cuts would begin in August.
The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points 鈥� package聽delivery聽has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the聽delivery聽of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on聽Saturdays. Post offices now open on聽Saturdays聽would remain open on聽Saturdays.
Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day聽delivery聽schedule for mail and packages 鈥� and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. Though an independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
It was not immediately clear how the service could eliminate聽Saturday聽mail without congressional approval.
But the agency clearly thinks it has a majority of the American public on its side regarding the change.
Material prepared for the Wednesday press conference by Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general and CEO, says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day聽delivery聽as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
