Kind: New USPS Standards Hurt Rural America

The new service standards implemented this month by the United States Postal Service have lawmakers from Rural America concerned. The Postal Service increased time-in-transit standards by one or two days for certain mail that is traveling longer distances, saying standards for single-piece First-Class Mail traveling within a local area will continue to be two days. USPS also announced a three-cent price increase for stamps, reaching 58 cents.

Wisconsin representative Ron Kind, recently sent a letter to USPS requesting them to reconsider the action, saying there’s a better way to save money that does not hurt rural, hard to reach areas of America. Part of the problem, Kind says, is the least profitable routs are passed down to USPS from other commercial shipping companies.

“I have some sympathy to them, though, they have to take every package, they have to take every letter, they have to deliver it where it's postmarked, whereas, UPS, FedEx, they get to pick and choose, they get to pick the cream of the crop, the most profitable routes. And then guess what, they contract the least profitable routes to the US Postal Service, who has to take it then.”

Which Kind said, creates an unlevel playing field.

“But it’s something that's mandated by our government because all American citizens should have access to efficient postal delivery in their lives, including the hard-to-reach rural areas, that last mile problem that FedEx and UPS decides to contract with USPS to deliver. And so, we haven’t figured out the solution to that, other than the USPS increasing some stamp rates.”

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