
Full eagle logo from 1970 to
1994
The
United States Postal Service
(USPS) is an independent
agency of the United States government responsible for
providing postal service in the United States
. It is one of the few government agencies
explicitly authorized by the United States
Constitution. Within the United States, it is commonly referred
to as the "Post Office", "Postal Service", or "U.S. Mail".
Though
postal services have existed on American territory before the
United States's establishment, the USPS's first incarnation was
established by Benjamin Franklin
in Philadelphia
in 1775 by decree of the Second Continental
Congress. The
Post Office Department
was created from this in 1792 as part of the
United States Cabinet, its current
form in 1970 under the
Postal
Reorganization Act.
Since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS
has become self-sufficient and has not received taxpayer-dollars
since the early 1980s. The decline of mail volume due to increased
usage of e-mail has forced the postal service to look to other
sources of revenue while cutting costs to maintain this financial
balance.
Employing
656,000 workers and 260,000 vehicles, it is the second-largest
civilian employer in the United States (after Wal-Mart
) and the
operator of the largest civilian vehicle
fleet in the world. The USPS is obligated to serve all
Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality.
Conversely, it has exclusive access to U.S. mail boxes and
non-urgent letters. It receives competition from
email and
package
delivery services.
History

Running pony logo used by the
U.S.
Post Office Department before the creation of the USPS
The first postal service in America arose in February of 1692 when
a grant from
King William & Queen
Mary empowered
Thomas Neale "to
erect, settle and establish within the chief parts of their
majesties' colonies and plantations in America, an office or
offices for the receiving and dispatching letters and pacquets, and
to receive, send and deliver the same under such rates and sums of
money as the planters shall agree to give, and to hold and enjoy
the same for the term of twenty-one years."
The
United States Post Office (U.S.P.O.) was created in
Philadelphia
under Benjamin
Franklin on July 26, 1775 by decree of the Second Continental
Congress. Based on the
Postal
Clause in
Article One of the
United States Constitution, empowering
Congress "To establish post
offices and post roads," it became the
Post Office
Department (U.S.P.O.D.) in 1792. It was part of the
Presidential
cabinet and the
Postmaster General was the
last person in the
United States
presidential line of succession. In 1971, the department was
reorganized as a quasi-independent corporation of the federal
government and acquired its present name. The Postmaster General is
no longer in the presidential line of succession.
The Post Office Department was enlarged during the tenure of
President
Andrew Jackson. As the Post
Office expanded, difficulties were experienced due to a lack of
employees and transportation. The Post Office's employees at that
time were still subject to the so-called 'spoils' system, where
faithful political supporters of the executive branch were
appointed to positions in the post office and other government
corporations as a reward for their patronage. These appointees
rarely had prior experience in postal service and mail delivery.
This system of political patronage was replaced in 1883 after
passage of the
Pendleton Act (Civil
Service Reform Act).
Once it became clear that the postal system in the United States
needed to expand across the entire country, the use of the railroad
to transport the mail was instituted in 1832. Railroad companies
greatly expanded mail transport service after 1862, and the
Railway Mail Service was
inaugurated in 1869. Rail cars designed from the start to sort and
distribute mail while rolling were soon introduced. RMS employees
sorted mail 'on the fly' during the journey, and became some of the
most skilled workers in the postal service. An RMS sorter had to be
able to separate the mail quickly into compartments based on its
final destination, before the first destination arrived, and work
at the rate of 600 pieces of mail an hour. They were tested
regularly for speed and accuracy. The advent of
rural free delivery in the U.S. in 1896
and the inauguration of
parcel post
service in 1913 greatly increased the volume of mail shipped
nationwide, and motivated the development of more efficient postal
transportation systems.
On August 12, 1918, the Post Office Department took over air mail
service from the U.S. Army Air Service (USAAS). Assistant
Postmaster General Otto Praeger appointed Benjamin B. Lipsner to
head the civilian-operated
Air Mail Service. One of
Lipsner's first acts was to hire four pilots, each with at least
1,000 hours flying experience, paying them an average of $4,000 per
year. The Post Office Department used mostly
World War I military surplus de Havilland DH-4
aircraft. During 1918, the Post Office hired an additional 36
pilots. In its first year of operation, the Post Office completed
1,208 airmail flights with 90 forced landings. Of those, 53 were
due to weather and 37 to engine failure. By 1920, the Air Mail
service had delivered 49 million letters. Domestic
air mail became obsolete in
1975, and international air mail in 1995, when the USPS began
transporting First Class mail by air on a routine basis.
The Post Office was one of the first government departments to
regulate
obscene materials on a national
basis. When the U.S. Congress passed the
Comstock laws of 1873, it became illegal to
send through the U.S. mail any material considered obscene,
indecent or which promoted
abortion issues,
contraception, or
alcohol consumption.
The
Postal Reorganization
Act signed by President
Richard
Nixon on August 12, 1970, replaced the cabinet-level
Post Office Department
with the independent United States Postal Service. The Act took
effect on July 1, 1971.
Current operations

USPS service delivery truck
The United
States Postal Service employs some 656,000 workers, making it the
second-largest civilian employer in the United States (excluding
the federal government) following only Wal-Mart
.
In a 2006
U.S.
Supreme Court
decision, the Court noted: "Each day, according to
the Government’s submissions here, the United States Postal Service
delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million
delivery points." The USPS operates 32,741 post offices and
locations in the US. In August 2009 the
Postal Regulatory Commission
put forward a preliminary
list of about 1000 it is considering closing to save
money. Its employees deliver mail at an average yearly cost of $235
per residence as of 2009.
The USPS operates the largest civilian
vehicle fleet in the world, with an estimated
260,000 vehicles, the majority of which are the easily identified
Chevrolet/
Grumman
LLV (Long-Life Vehicle), and the newer Ford/Utilimaster FFV
(Flex-Fuel Vehicle), originally also referred to as the "CRV"
(Carrier Route Vehicle), as shown in the pictures below. In an
interview on NPR, a USPS official stated that for every penny
increase in the national average price of
gasoline, the USPS spends an extra $8 million to
fuel its fleet. This implies that the fleet requires some 800
million gallons (3.03 billion liters) of fuel per year, and
consumes an estimated fuel budget of $2.4 billion, were the
national gasoline price to average $3.00. Some
Rural Letter Carriers use personal
vehicles. Standard postal-owned vehicles do not have
license plates. These vehicles are identified
by a seven digit number displayed on the front and rear.
Competition from e-mail
and private operations such as United Parcel Service
and FedEx has forced USPS to
adjust its business strategy and to modernize its products and
services. First Class mail volume (which is protected by
legal monopoly) has declined 22% from 1998 to 2007, due to the
increasing use of e-mail and the World Wide Web for correspondence
and business transactions. In 2008, a general economic slowdown
also affected mail volumes, especially advertising. Lower volume
means lower revenues to support the fixed commitment to deliver to
every address once a day, six days a week. In response, the USPS
has increased productivity each year from 2000 to 2007, through
increased automation, route re-optimization, and facility
consolidation.
The domain
usps.com attracted at least
159 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a
Compete.com survey.
The Department of Defense and the USPS jointly operate a postal
system to deliver
mail for
the military; this is known as the
Army Post
Office (for
Army and
Air Force postal facilities)
and
Fleet Post Office (for
Navy,
Marine Corps and
Coast Guard postal
facilities).
Governance and organization
The
Board of
Governors of the United States Postal Service sets policy,
procedure, and postal rates for services rendered, and has a
similar role to a corporate
board of
directors. Of the eleven members of the Board, nine are
appointed by the
President and confirmed by
the
United States Senate (see
). The nine appointed members then select the
United States Postmaster
General, who serves as the board's tenth member, and who
oversees the day to day activities of the service as
Chief Executive Officer (see ). The
ten-member board then nominates a Deputy Postmaster General, who
acts as
Chief Operating
Officer, to the eleventh and last remaining open seat.
The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned
corporation (e.g.,
Amtrak), but as noted above is legally defined as an
"independent establishment of the executive branch of the
Government of the United States," ( ) as it is wholly owned by the
government and controlled by the Presidential appointees and the
Postmaster General.
As a quasi-governmental agency, it has
many special privileges, including sovereign immunity, eminent domain powers, powers to negotiate
postal
treaties
with foreign nations, and an exclusive legal right
to deliver first-class and third-class mail. Indeed, in 2004, the
U.S.
Supreme Court
ruled in a unanimous decision that the USPS was not
a government-owned corporation, and therefore could not be sued
under the Sherman Antitrust
Act. The U.S. Supreme Court has also upheld the USPS's
statutory monopoly on access to letterboxes against a
First
Amendment freedom of speech
challenge; it thus remains illegal in the U.S. for
anyone
other than the employees and agents of the USPS to deliver
mailpieces to letterboxes marked "U.S. Mail."
The Postal Service also has a Mailers' Technical Advisory Committee
and local Postal Customer Councils, which are advisory and
primarily involve business customers.
Universal Service Obligation and monopoly status
Article I, section 8, Clause 7 of the
United States
Constitution grants
U.S. Congress the power to establish post offices
and post roads. The Federal Government has interpreted this clause
as granting a de facto Congressional
monopoly over the delivery of mail. According to
the government, no other system for delivering mail - public or
private - can be established absent Congress's consent. Congress
has delegated to the Postal Service the power to decide whether
others may compete with it, and the Postal Service has carved out
an exception to its monopoly for extremely urgent letters.
The mission of the Postal Service is to provide the American public
with trusted universal postal service at affordable prices. While
not explicitly defined, the Postal Service’s
universal service obligation
(USO) is broadly outlined in statute and includes multiple
dimensions: geographic scope, range of products, access to services
and facilities, delivery frequency, affordable and uniform pricing,
service quality, and security of the mail. While other carriers
claim to voluntarily provide delivery on a universal basis, the
Postal Service is the only carrier with the obligation to provide
all the various aspects of universal service at affordable
rates.
Proponents of postal service monopoly claim that since any
obligation must be matched by the financial capability to meet that
obligation, the postal monopoly was put in place as a funding
mechanism for the USO, and it has been in place for over a hundred
years. It consists of two parts: the
Private Express Statutes (PES) and
the mailbox access rule. The PES refers to the Postal Service’s
monopoly on the delivery of letters, and the mailbox rule refers to
the Postal Service’s exclusive access to customer mailboxes.
Proponents of postal service monopoly further claim that
eliminating or reducing the PES or mailbox rule would have an
impact on the ability of the Postal Service to provide affordable
universal service. If, for example, the PES and the mailbox rule
were to be eliminated, and the USO maintained, then either billions
of dollars in tax revenues or some other source of funding would
have to be found. As the operating environment of the Postal
Service continues to change, additional flexibilities will likely
be necessary to fulfill the USO.
However, several professional economists advocate the privatization
of the mail delivery system, or at least a relaxation of the
monopoly that currently exists. Rick Geddes argued in 2000:
- First, basic economics implies that rural customers are
unlikely to be without service under competition; they would simply
have to pay the true cost of delivery to them, which may or may not
be lower than under monopoly.
- Second, basic notions of fairness imply that the
cross-subsidy should be eliminated. To the extent that
people make choices about where they live, they should assume the
costs of that decision.
- Third, there is no reason why the government monopoly is
necessary to ensure service to sparsely populated areas.
The government could easily award competitive contracts to
private firms for that service.
- Fourth, early concerns that rural residents of the United
States would somehow become isolated without federally subsidized
mail delivery today are simply unfounded. ...
Once both sender and receiver have access to a computer, the
marginal cost of sending an electronic message is close to
zero.
However, as the recent notice of a termination of mail service to
residents of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness
indicates, mail service has been contracted to private firms such
as Arnold Aviation for many decades. KTVB-TV reported:
- '"We cannot go out every week and pick up our mail....it's
impossible," said Heinz Sippel. "Everyone get their mail. Why can't
we?" said Sue Anderson. Getting mail delivered, once a week, by
airplane is not a luxury, it's a necessity for those who live in
Idaho's vast wilderness -- those along the Salmon and Selway
rivers. It's a service that's been provided to them for more than
half a century -- mostly by Ray Arnold of Arnold Aviation.
The decision was reversed; U.S. Postmaster General John Potter
indicated that acceptable service to backcountry customers could
not be achieved in any other fashion than continuing an air mail
contract with Arnold Aviation to deliver the mail."
The Postal Act of 2006 required the PRC to submit a report to the
President and Congress on universal postal service and the postal
monopoly in December 2008. The report must include any recommended
changes. The Postal Service report supports the requirement that
the PRC is to consult with and solicit written comments from the
Postal Service. In addition, the Government Accountability Office
is required to evaluate broader business model issues by
2011.
On October 15, 2008, the Postal Service submitted a report to the
Postal Regulatory
Commission (PRC) on its position related to the Universal
Service Obligation (USO). It said no changes to the USO and
restriction on mailbox access were necessary at this time, but
increased regulatory flexibility was required to ensure affordable
universal service in the future.
Obligations of the USO include uniform prices, quality of service,
access to services, and six-day delivery to every part of the
country. To assure financial support for these obligations, the
postal monopoly provides the Postal Service the exclusive right to
deliver letters and restricts mailbox access solely for mail. The
report argued that eliminating or reducing either aspect of the
monopoly "would have a devastating impact on the ability...to
provide the affordable universal service that the country values so
highly." Relaxing access to the mailbox would also pose security
concerns, increase delivery costs, and hurt customer service,
according to the Post Office. The report notes:
- It is somewhat misleading to characterize the mailbox rule
as a “monopoly,” because the enforcement of 18 U.S.C. 1725
leaves customers with ample alternative means of delivering their
messages. Customers can deliver their messages either by
paying postage, by placing messages on or under a door or a
doormat, by using newspaper or nonpostal boxes, by telephoning or
emailing, by engaging in person-to-person delivery in public areas,
by tacking or taping their notices on a door post, or by placing
advertisements in local newspapers. These methods are
comparable in efficacy to communication via the mailbox.
The Postal Service said that the USO should continue to be broadly
defined and there should be no changes to the postal monopoly. Any
changes would have far-reaching effects on customers and the
trillion dollar mailing industry. “A more rigidly defined USO would
… ultimately harm the American public and businesses,” according to
the report, which cautions that any potential change must be
studied carefully and the effects fully understood.
During hearings held earlier this year, the PRC also heard from
mailers, mailing associations, and postal unions and management
associations. Comments generally indicated that changes are not
currently needed.
Competitors
FedEx and United Parcel Service
(UPS) directly compete with USPS express mail and
package delivery services, making nationwide deliveries of urgent
letters and packages. Due to the postal monopoly, they are
not allowed to deliver non-urgent letters and may not use U.S. Mail
boxes at residential and commercial destinations. These services
also deliver packages which are larger and heavier than what the
USPS will accept.
DHL Express was the
third major competitor until February 2009, when it ceased domestic
delivery operations in the United States.
A variety of other
transportation
companies in the United States move cargo around the country,
but either have limited geographic scope for delivery points, or
specialize in items too large to be mailed. Many of the thousands
of
courier companies focus on same-day
delivery, for example by
bicycle
messenger.
Alternative transmission methods
The Post Office Department owned and operated the first public
telegraph lines in the United States,
starting in 1844 from Washington to Baltimore, and eventually
extending to New York, Boston, Buffalo, and Philadelphia. In 1847,
the telegraph system was privatized, except for a period during
World War I when it was used to
accelerate the delivery of letters arriving at night.
Between 1942 and 1945, "V-Mail" (for "Victory Mail") service was
available for
military mail. Letters
were converted into
microfilm and
reprinted near the destination, to save room on transport vehicles
for military cargo.
From 1982 to 1985, Electronic Computer Originated Mail was accepted
for bulk mailings. Text was transmitted electronically to one of 25
post offices nationwide. The Postal Service would print the mail,
and put it in special envelopes bearing a blue ECOM logo. Delivery
was assured within 2 days.
Plans
In October 2008, the Postal Service released
Vision 2013,
a five-year plan required by law starting in 1993.
One planned improvement is the introduction of the
Intelligent Mail Barcode, which
will allow pieces of mail to be tracked through the delivery
system, as competitors like UPS and FedEx currently do.
On May 11, 2009, the price of a First-Class Mail stamp rose to 44
cents.
[8135]
2010 census
On
July 10,
2009, Rep.
Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah
) introduced
H.R. 3167 with the direct support of Chairman
Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts
). H.R. 3167 requires the
2010 United States Census to be
conducted in partnership with the United States Postal
Service.
After it was estimated that the 2010 Census would require 750,000
temporary employees in order to carry out all associated tasks, the
commerce department made the controversial decision to utilize a
variety of community organizations, including the
Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now, to gather census
data. In committee hearings, Rep. Chaffetz and others expressed
serious reservations about the lack of standards offered by the
Census to ensure trustworthy and competent partner
organizations.
As a potential solution to this issue, it was observed that the
United States Postal Service employs a staff of 760,000, just over
the estimated labor force requirement. Chaffetz argued that Letter
Carriers would be the most qualified individuals to carry out this
task and that the plan would provide an additional revenue stream
for the USPS during difficult financial times. Chaffetz explained,
"It is imperative the American People have the utmost confidence in
the collection of Census data. We should not rely upon ACORN to
gather Census data. I don’t trust ACORN and neither do the American
people. We already have a trusted workforce. This is a common sense
business approach. Rather than hire 750,000 new, unknown people,
let’s use people and assets already in place. This should save
money, help the Post Office in a time of financial need, and give
confidence and credibility to the collection of personal
information. Postal carriers know the people on their routes, they
know how to find them and how to count them. The census is a good
example of an inefficient government program with billions of
dollars of cost overruns that could immediately become more
efficient with this common sense approach using resources already
at our disposal."
Law enforcement agencies
U.S. Postal Inspection Service
The
U.S. Postal Inspection Service
(USPIS) is one of the oldest
law enforcement agencies in the
U.S. It was founded by
Benjamin
Franklin.
The mission of the USPIS is to protect the U.S. Postal Service, its
employees and its customers from criminal attack, and protect the
nation's mail system from criminal misuse.
U.S. law provides for the protection of mail. Postal Inspectors
enforce over 200 federal laws in investigations of crimes that may
adversely affect or fraudulently use the U.S. Mail, the postal
system or postal employees. The USPIS is a major federal
law enforcement agency.
The USPIS has the power to enforce the USPS monopoly by conducting
search and seizure raids on entities they suspect of sending
non-urgent mail through overnight delivery competitors. For
example: according to the
American Enterprise Institute,
a private conservative
think tank, the
USPIS raided
Equifax offices in 1993 to
ascertain if the mail they were sending through
Federal Express was truly "extremely urgent." It was
found that the mail was not, and Equifax was fined $30,000.
USPS Office of Inspector General
The
USPS Office of
Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Postal Service was
authorized by law in 1996. Prior to the 1996 legislation, the
Postal Inspection Service performed the duties of the OIG. The
Inspector General, who is independent of postal management, is
appointed by and reports directly to the nine
Presidential appointed
Governors of the Postal Service.
The primary purpose of the OIG is to prevent, detect and report
fraud, waste and program abuse, and promote efficiency in the
operations of the Postal Service. The OIG has "oversight"
responsibility for all activities of the
Postal Inspection Service.
Addressing envelopes
For any letter addressed within the United States, the USPS
requires two pieces of information on the envelope.
- Address of the
recipient: Placed on the front (non opening) side of the
envelope in the center. Generally, the name of the addressee should
be included above the address itself. A ZIP+4 code will facilitate delivery.
- Postage indication: All parcels must include
an indication that postage has been paid. In most cases, this is a
stamp, though metered labels are also
common. Members of the U.S. Congress, among others, have franking privileges, which only require a
signature.
Domestic first-class mail costs 44¢ for
envelopes (28¢ for
post
cards) and upwards, depending on the weight and dimensions of
the letter and the class, and the
indicia is supposed to be
placed in the upper-right corner.
A third, and optional (but strongly suggested) addition is a
return address. This is the address
that the recipient may respond to, and, if necessary, the letter
can be returned to if delivery fails. It is usually placed in the
upper-left corner or occasionally on the back (though the latter is
standard in some countries).
Undeliverable mails that cannot be readily
returned, including those without return addresses, are treated as
dead mails at a Mail Recovery Center in
Atlanta,
Georgia
or Saint Paul, Minnesota
.

Sticker promoting ZIP code use.
- The formatting of the address is as follows:
- Line 1: Name of recipient
- Line 2: Street address or P.O. Box
- Line 3: City State (ISO 3166-2:US
code or APO/FPO code) and ZIP+4 code
- Example:
- Mr Clifford C Clavin, Jr
- 112 1/2 Beacon St
- Boston MA 02119-2343
The USPS maintains a list of proper abbreviations.
The city and state designations are a redundant safety measure used
in the case that the printed ZIP code is illegible or ambiguously
written. Since the ZIP code system is such that there is only one
street of any name for any ZIP code (ex. there is only one Johnson
Street in the 10036 ZIP area), it is possible to exclude the city
and state from a mailing label and still have the package
delivered, assuming the label is legible.
The formatting of a return address is identical. Though some
style manuals do recommend using a
comma between the city and state name when typesetting addresses in
other contexts, for optimal automatic character recognition, the
Post Office does not recommend this when addressing mail. The
official recommendation is to use all upper case block letters with
appropriate formats and abbreviations, and leave out all
punctuation except for the
hyphen in the
ZIP+4 code. If the address is unusually formatted or illegible
enough, it will require hand-processing, delaying that particular
item. The USPS publishes the entirety of their postal addressing
standards.
Customers can look up ZIP codes on usps.com, and purchase postage
if they have an account.
Paying postage
The actual postage can be paid via:
- Stamps purchased online, at a Post Office, from a stamp vending
machine or "Automated Postal Center" which can also handle
packages, or from a third party (such as a grocery store)
- Pre-cancelled stamps for
bulk mailings
- Postal meter
- Prepaid envelope
- Shipping label purchased online and printed by the customer on
standard paper (e.g. with Click-n-Ship)
All unused
U.S. postage stamps
issued since 1861 are still valid as postage at their indicated
value. Stamps with no value shown or denominated by a letter are
also still valid at their purchase price.
The cost of mailing a 1 oz. First Class letter increased to 44
cents on May 11, 2009, but since April 2007, the Post Office has
offered a "
forever" stamp. This
stamp is sold at the first class mail postage rate at the time of
purchase, but will always be valid for 1st class mail (1 oz and
under), no matter how rates rise in the future. Britain has had a
similar stamp since 1989.
However, one of the tenets of the Universal
Postal Union
is having a single flat rate to mail a letter
anywhere in the world, which is true for Britain (since 1995), but
not the U.S.
Postage meters
PC postage
In addition to using standard stamps, postage can now be printed
from a
personal computer using a
system called
Information
Based Indicia. Authorized providers of PC Postage are:
Endicia provides the technology that allows Click-N-Ship to print
postage and Endicia licenses this technology to individual shippers
through software applications. Through Pitney Bowes,
PayPal account holders can print postage on the site
and have the costs deducted from their PayPal account (with no
surcharge) or a linked bank account. With either service, the
sender may then drop off the parcel at a location accepting parcels
or request pick-up at the address of origin.
Other electronic postage payment methods
Electronic Verification System (eVS) is the Postal Service's
integrated mail management technology that centralizes payment
processing and electronic postage reports. Part of an evolving
suite of USPS electronic payment services called PostalOne! , eVS
allows mailers shipping large volumes of parcels through the Postal
Service a way to circumvent use of hard-copy manifests, postage
statements and drop-shipment verification forms. Instead, mailers
can pay postage automatically through a centralized account and
track payments online.
Beginning August 2007, the Postal Service began requiring mailers
shipping Parcel Select packages using a permit imprint to use eVS
for manifesting their packages. Currently, the list of USPS
"Approved eVS Mailers" includes:
Stamp copyright and reproduction
All U.S. postage stamps issued under the former
United States Post Office
Department and other postage items that were released before
1978 are not subject to copyright, but stamp designs since 1978 are
copyrighted. Following the creation of the United States Postal
Service, the
United
States Copyright Office in section 206.02(b) of the
Compendium II:
Copyright Office Practices holds that "Works of the U.S. Postal
Service, as now constituted, are not considered U.S. Government
works." Here, the U.S. Copyright Office has clarified that works of
the
U.S. Postal Service, of the government of the
District of
Columbia
, or of the government of Puerto Rico are not "works of the U.S.
government" and thus are subject to copyright.
Thus, postal service holds copyright to such materials released
since 1978 under Title 17 of the
United States Code. Written permission is
required for use of copyrighted postage stamp images.
Service level choices
General domestic services
Domestic postage includes Monday through Saturday delivery
(excepting federal holidays) to any address, Post Office Box, or
general delivery Post Office in the United States, or any U.S.
military mail destination.
The Post Office will not deliver packages heavier than 70 lbs.
or if the two largest dimensions (length and width) are greater
than 108 inches combined. Other carriers handle packages that do
not meet these conditions. Mail sent at a level below First Class
will not be forwarded or returned to sender, unless an additional
fee is paid; "return service requested" may need to appear on the
outside of the item. Deliveries outside the
contiguous United States may take
longer.
As of May 2007, domestic postage levels for low-volume mailers
include:
- Express Mail - "Overnight
Guaranteed" to most locations
- Sunday and holiday delivery available for additional
charge
- $100 insurance included
- Flat rate envelope available. Otherwise, variable pricing by
weight, size, and ZIP code.
- Priority Mail - 2 or 3-day service (not guaranteed)
- Flat rate envelope and boxes (various sizes) available.
Otherwise, variable pricing by weight, size, and ZIP code.
- First Class Mail
- Fast service (2–3 days) for letters and small packages
- Flat rate depending on size and weight
- Cards (up to 5" x 3.5" x .007"): 28¢
- Letters (up to 11.5" x 6.125" x .25", 3.5 oz.): 44¢ + 17¢ each
add'l oz.
- Large Envelope or Flat (up to 15" x 12" x .75", 13 oz.): 88¢ +
17¢ each add'l oz. Must be rectangular, uniformly thick, and not
too rigid.
- Package/Parcel (Up to 108" length + width, 13 oz): $1.13 + 17¢
each add'l oz.
- Parcel Post
- Slowest but cheapest service for packages - uses surface transport
- 2-9-day service to contiguous U.S., 4–14 days internal to
AK/HI/territories, 3–6 weeks between mainland and outlying areas
(travels by ship)
- Variable pricing by weight and ZIP code
- Free forwarding if receipient has filed change-of-address form,
or return if the item is undeliverable
- Media Mail (formerly "Book Rate")
- Books and recorded media only
- No advertising
- Flat rate pricing by weight only
- Transit time similar to Parcel Post
- Cheaper than Parcel Post but only due to increased restrictions
on package contents.
- Library Mail
- Similar to Media Mail, but cheaper and restricted to academic
institutions, public libraries, museums, etc.
Bulk mail
Discounts are available for large volumes of mail. Depending on the
postage level, certain conditions might be required or optional for
an additional discount:
- Minimum number of pieces
- Weight limits
- Ability for the USPS to process by machine
- Addresses formatting standardized
- USPS-readable barcode
- Sorted by 3-digit ZIP code prefix, 5-digit ZIP code, ZIP+4, or
11-digit delivery point
- Delivered in trays, bundles, or pallets partitioned by
destination
- Delivered directly to a regional Bulk Mail Center, destination
SCF, or destination Post Office
- Certification of mailing list accuracy and freshness (e.g.
correct ZIP codes, purging of stale addresses, processing of
change-of-address notifications)
In addition to bulk discounts on Express, Priority, and First Class
Mail, the following postage levels are available for bulk
mailers:
- Periodicals
- Standard Mail (A)
- Automation
- Enhanced Carrier Route
- Regular
- Standard Mail (B)
- Parcel Post
- Bound Printed Matter - Cheaper
than Media Mail, for advertising catalogs, phone books, etc. up to
15 lbs.
- Special Standard Mail
- Library Mail
- Nonprofit
Add-on services
Depending on the type of mail, additional services are available
for an additional fee:
- Certificate of Mailing - Proof of the date a package was
mailed.
- Delivery Confirmation - Provides proof of delivery, but no
signature is required.
- Signature Confirmation - Delivery requires a signature, which
is kept on file. The online tracking system displays the first
initial and last name of the signatory.
- Return Receipt - Actively sends Signature Confirmation
information back to the sender by postcard or emailed PDF (as
opposed to merely putting this information into the online tracking
system).
- Insurance against loss or damage, for
the value of the goods mailed. Amount of coverage can be specified,
up to $5000.
- Certified Mail - Provides proof of mailing, and a delivery
record. Used for serving legal documents and for sending U.S. Government
classified information, up to the "confidential" level.
- Restricted Delivery - Requires delivery to a specific person or
their authorized agent, not just to a mailbox.
- Collect On Delivery (C.O.D.) - Allows merchants to offer
customers an option to pay upon delivery, up to $1000. Includes
insurance.
- Special Handling - For unusual items, like live animals.
- Registered Mail - Used for highly valuable or irreplaceable
items, and classified
information up to the "secret" level. Registered mail is
transported separately from other mail, in locked containers.
Tracking is included and insurance up to $25,000 is available.
Postal money orders
Postal money orders provide a safe alternative to sending
cash through the mail, and are available in any amount
up to $1000.
Money orders are cashable
only by the recipient, just like a
bank
check. Unlike a personal bank check, they are pre-paid and
therefore cannot bounce. Money orders are a declining business for
the USPS, as companies like
PayPal and
PaidByCash and others are offering
electronic replacements through the
MasterCard and
Visa
systems.
From 1911 to 1966, the Postal Service also operated a savings
program, not unlike a
savings and
loan with the amount of the deposit limited.
International services
Formerly,
USPS International services were categorized as
Airmail (Letter Post), Economy (Surface) Parcel Post, Airmail
Parcel Post, Global Priority, Global Express, and Global Express
Guaranteed Mail. In May 2007, USPS restructured international
service names to correspond with domestic shipping options. Letter
post is now First Class Mail International, Airmail Parcel Post was
discontinued and replaced by Priority Mail International. Global
Express is now Express Mail International. Global Express
Guaranteed is unchanged, and Economy Parcel Post was discontinued
for international service. The only mailing classes with a tracking
ability are Express and Express Guaranteed. One of the major
changes in the new naming and services definitions is that
USPS-supplied mailing boxes for Priority and Express mail are now
allowed for international use. Also, a Priority Mail International
Flat-Rate has been introduced, with the same conditions of service
previously used for Global Priority. These services are offered to
ship letters and packages to almost every country and territory on
the globe. Ironically, the USPS provides much of this service by
contracting with a private parcel service,
FedEx.
On May 14, 2007, the United States Postal Service canceled all
outgoing international surface mail (sometimes known as "sea mail")
from the United States, citing increased costs and reduced demand
due to competition from airmail services such as FedEx and UPS. The
decision has been criticized by the Peace Corps and military
personnel overseas, as well as independent booksellers and other
small businesses who rely on international deliveries.
Military mail is billed at domestic
rates when being sent from the United States to a military outpost,
and is free when sent by deployed military personnel. The overseas
logistics are handled by the
Military
Postal Service Agency in the Department of Defense. Outside of
forward areas and active operations, military mail First Class
takes 7–10 days, Priority 10–15 days, and Parcel Post about 24
days.
Airline and rail division
The United States Postal Service does not directly own or operate
any aircraft or trains. The mail and packages are flown on airlines
with which the Postal Service has a contractual agreement. The
contracts change periodically. Depending on the contract, aircraft
may be painted with the USPS paint scheme. Contract airlines have
included:
Emery Worldwide,
Ryan International Airlines,
FedEx Express,
Rhoades Aviation,
American Airlines and
Express One International.
The
Postal Service also contracts with Amtrak to
carry some mail between certain cities such as Chicago
and Minneapolis-St. Paul
.
The last
air delivery route in the continental U.S., to residents in the
Frank Church-River of No Return
Wilderness
, was scheduled to be ended in June 2009. The
weekly
bush plane route, contracted out
to an
air taxi company, had in its final
year an annual cost of $46,000, or $2400/year per residence, over
ten times the average cost of delivering mail to a residence in the
United States. This decision has been reversed by the U.S.
Postmaster General.
Sorting and delivery process
Processing of standard sized envelopes and cards is highly
automated, including reading of handwritten addresses. Mail from
individual customers and public postboxes is collected by mail
carriers into plastic tubs. The tubs are taken to a
Processing and Distribution Center
(P&DC).There are approximately 275 such centers across the
United States, which sort mail for a given region (typically a
radius of around 200 miles) and connect with the national network
for interregional mail.
At the P&DC, mail is emptied into hampers which are then
automatically dumped into a Dual Pass Rough Cull System (DPRCS). As
mail travels through the DPRCS, large items, such as packages and
mail bundles, are removed from the stream. As the remaining mail
enters the first machine for processing standard mail, the
Advanced Facer-Canceler
System (AFCS), pieces that passed through the DPRCS but do not
conform to physical dimensions for processing in the AFCS (i.e.
large envelopes or overstuffed standard envelopes) are
automatically diverted from the stream. Mail removed from the DPRCS
and AFCS is manually processed or sent to parcel sorting
machines.
In contrast to the previous system, which merely canceled and
postmarked the upper right corner of the envelope, thereby missing
any stamps which were inappropriately placed, the AFCS locates
indicia (stamp or metered
postage mark), regardless of the orientation of the
mail as it enters the machine, and cancels it by applying a
postmark. Detection of indicia enables the
AFCS to determine the orientation of each mailpiece and sort it
accordingly, rotating pieces as necessary so all mail is sorted
right-side up and faced in the same direction in each output bin.
Mail is output by the machine into three categories: mail already
affixed with a
bar code and addressed (such
as business reply envelopes and cards), mail with machine printed
(typed) addresses, and mail with handwritten addresses.
Additionally, machines with a recent
Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) upgrade have the capability to read the address information,
including handwritten, and sort the mail based on local or outgoing
ZIP codes.
Mail with typed addresses goes to a
Multiline Optical Character
Reader (MLOCR) which reads the ZIP Code and address information
and prints the appropriate bar code onto the envelope. Mail
(actually the scanned image of the mail) with handwritten addresses
(and machine-printed ones that aren't easily recognized) goes to
the
Remote Bar Coding
System. It also corrects spelling errors and, where there is an
error, omission, or conflict in the written address, identifies the
most likely correct address. When it has decided on a correct
address, it prints the appropriate bar code onto the envelopes,
similarly to the MLOCR system. RBCS also has facilities in place,
called
Remote Encoding
Centers, that have humans look at images of mail pieces and
enter the address data. The address data is associated with the
image via an ID Tag, a
fluorescent
Barcode printed by mail processing equipment
on the back of mail pieces.
If a customer has filed a change of address card and his or her
mail is detected in the mailstream with the old address, the
mailpiece is sent to a machine that automatically connects to a
Computerized Forwarding System database to determine the new
address. If this address is found, the machine will paste a label
over the former address with the current address. The mail is
returned to the mailstream to forward to the new location.
Mail with addresses that cannot be resolved by the automated system
are separated for human intervention. If a local postal worker can
read the address, he or she manually sorts it out according to the
ZIP code on the article. If the address cannot be read, mail is
either returned to the sender (first class mail with a valid return
address) or is sent to one of three
Mail Recovery Center in the United States
(formerly known as Dead Letter Offices, originated by Benjamin
Franklin in the 1770s ) where it receives more intense scrutiny,
including being opened to determine if any of the contents are a
clue. If no valid address can be determined, the items are held for
90 days in case of inquiry by the customer; and if they are not
claimed then they are either destroyed or auctioned off at the
annual Postal Service Unclaimed Parcel auction to raise money for
the service.
Once the mail is bar coded, it is automatically sorted by a
Delivery Bar Code System
that reads the bar code and determines the destination of the
mailpiece to postal stations.
Regional mail is trucked to the appropriate local post office or
kept in the building for carrier routes served directly from the
P&DC. Out-of-region mail is trucked to the airport and then
flown, usually as baggage on commercial
airlines, to the airport nearest the destination
station. At the destination P&DC, mail is once again read by a
Delivery Bar Code System
which sorts the items into their local destinations, including
grouping them by individual mail carrier.
At the carrier route level, 95% of letters arrive pre-sorted; the
remaining mail must be sorted by hand. The Post Office is working
to increase the percentage of automatically sorted mail, including
a pilot program to sort "flats".
Types of postal facilities
Although its customer service centers are called post offices in
regular speech, the USPS recognizes several types of postal
facilities, including the following:
- A main post office (formerly known as a
general post office), which is the primary postal
facility in a community.
- A station or post office
station, a postal facility that is not the main post
office, but that is within the corporate limits of the
community.
- A branch or post office
branch, a postal facility that is not the main post office
and that is outside the corporate limits of the community.
- A classified unit, a station or branch
operated by USPS employees in a facility owned or leased by the
USPS.
- A contract postal unit (or
CPU), a station or branch operated by a
contractor, typically in a store or other place of business.
- A community post office (or
CPO), a contract postal unit providing services in
a small community in which other types of post office facilities
have been discontinued.
- A finance unit, a station or branch that
provides window services and accepts mail, but does not provide
delivery.
- A processing and distribution center
(P&DC, or processing and distribution
facility, formerly known as a General Mail
Facility), a central mail facility that processes and
dispatches incoming and outgoing mail to and from a designated
service area. (275 nationwide.)
- An international service center
(ISC), an international mail processing facility.
There are only five such USPS facilities in the United States,
located in Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and San
Francisco.
- A sectional
center facility , a P&DC for a designated
geographical area defined by one or more three-digit ZIP code prefixes.
- A bulk mail center
(BMC), a central mail facility that processes bulk
rate parcels as the hub in a hub
and spoke network.
- An auxiliary sorting facility
(ASF), a central mail facility that processes bulk
rate parcels as spokes in a hub and spoke network.
- A remote encoding center
(REC), a facility at which clerks receive images
of problem mail pieces (those with hard-to-read addresses, etc.)
via secure Internet-type feeds and manually type the addresses they
can decipher, using a special encoding protocol. The mail pieces
are then sprayed with the correct addresses or are sorted for
further handling according to the instructions given via encoding.
The total number of RECs is down from 55 in 1998 to just 5 centers
in April 2009. In 2010, there will be just two remaining RECs open,
in Salt Lake City, Utah and Wichita, Kansas. More closures will
occur as computer software becomes more able to read most
addresses, but a few centers are expected to remain open (see
Evolutionary Network Development below).
While common usage refers to all types of postal facilities as
"substations," the USPS Glossary of Postal Terms does not define or
even list that word.
The USPS also operates Automated Postal Centers, which are
unattended kiosks that are capable of weighing, franking, and
storing packages for later pickup. Similarly, traditional
vending machines are available at many post
offices to purchase stamps. Due to increasing use of Internet
services, as of June, 2009, no retail post office windows are open
24 hours; overnight services are limited to those provided by an
Automated Postal Center.
There are approximately 36,000 post offices, stations, and branches
in the USPS retail system. Temporary stations are also set up for
applying
pictorial
cancellations.
Evolutionary Network Development (END) program
In February, 2006, the USPS announced that they plan to replace the
nine existing facility-types with five processing facility-types:
- Regional Distribution Centers (RDCs), which
will process all classes of parcels and bundles and serve as
Surface Transfer Centers;
- Local Processing Centers (LPCs), which will
process single-piece letters and flats and cancel mail;
- Destination Processing Centers (DPC), sort the
mail for individual mail carriers;
- Airport Transfer Centers (ATCs), which will
serve as transfer points only; and
- Remote Encoding Centers (RECs).
Over a period of years, these facilities are expected to replace
Processing & Distribution Centers, Customer Service Facilities,
Bulk Mail Centers,
Logistic and
Distribution Centers, annexes, the Hub and Spoke Program,
Air Mail Centers, and International Service
Centers.
The changes are a result of the declining volumes of single-piece
first-class mail, population shifts, the increase in drop shipments
by advertising mailers at destinating postal facilities,
advancements in equipment and technology, redundancies in the
existing network, and the need for operational flexibility.
Final delivery
Delivery days
Until 1912, mail was delivered 7 days a week. As the postal service
grew in popularity and usage in the 1800s, local religious leaders
were noticing a decline in Sunday morning church attendance due to
local post offices doubling as gathering places. These leaders
appealed to the government to intervene and close post offices on
Sundays.
As a result of this intervention by the government, U.S.
Mail
(with the exception of Express Mail) is not delivered on Sunday,
with the exception of a few towns in which the local religion has
had an effect on the policy; for example, Loma Linda,
California
, which has a significant Seventh-day Adventist
population. U.S. Mail is delivered Sunday through Friday,
with the exception of observed federal holidays.
Saturday delivery was temporarily suspended in April 1957, due to
lack of funds, but quickly restored. On January 28, 2009,
Postmaster General John E. Potter
testified before the Senate that if the Postal Service is not able
to readjust their payment toward the pre-funding of retiree health
benefits, as mandated by the Postal Accountability &
Enhancement Act of 2006, the USPS would be forced to consider
cutting delivery to five days per week during the summer months of
June, July & August. However, the universal service obligation
and six day delivery are upheld by Congressional language within
Appropriations legislation, so a reduction in service would require
action from the House and Senate.
On June 10, 2009, the NRLCA was contacted for its input on the
USPS's current study of the impact of five-day delivery along with
developing an implementation plan for a five-day service plan. A
team of postal service headquarters executives and staff has been
given a time frame of sixty days to complete the study. The current
concept examines the impact of five-day delivery with no business
or collections on Saturday, with Post Offices with current Saturday
hours remaining open.
Direct delivery vs. customer pickup
Originally, mail was not delivered to homes and businesses, but to
post offices. In 1863, "city delivery" began in urban areas with
enough customers to make this economical. This required streets to
be named, houses to be numbered, with sidewalks and lighting
provided, and these street addresses to be added to envelopes. The
number of routes served expanded over time. In 1891, the first
experiments with
Rural Free
Delivery began in less densely populated areas.
To compensate for high mail volume and slow long-distance
transportation which saw mail arrive at post offices throughout the
day, deliveries were made multiple times a day.
This ranged from
twice for residential areas to up to seven times for the central
business district of Brooklyn, New York
. In the late 1800s, mail boxes were
encouraged, saving carriers the time it took to deliver directly to
the addressee in person; in the 1910s and 1920s, they were phased
in as a requirement for service. In the 1940s, multiple daily
deliveries began to be reduced, especially on Saturdays. By 1990,
the last twice-daily deliveries in New York City were
eliminated.
Today, mail is delivered once a day on-site to most private homes
and businesses. The USPS still distinguishes between city delivery
(where carriers generally walk and deliver to mailboxes hung on
exterior walls or porches, or to commercial reception areas) and
rural delivery (where carriers generally drive). With "curbside
delivery", mailboxes are at the ends of driveways, on the nearest
convenient road. "Central point delivery" is used in some
locations, where several nearby residences share a "cluster" of
individual mailboxes in a single housing.
Some customers choose to use
post office
boxes for an additional fee, for privacy or convenience. This
provides a locked box at the post office to which mail is addressed
and delivered (usually earlier in the day than home delivery).
High-volume business customers can also arrange for special
pick-up.
Another option is the old-style
general
delivery, for people who have neither post office boxes nor
street addresses. Mail is held at the post office until they
present identification and pick it up.
Some customers receive free post office boxes if the USPS declines
to provide door-to-door delivery to their location or a nearby box.
People with medical problems can request door-to-door delivery.
Homeless people are also eligible for post
office boxes at the discretion of the local postmaster, or can use
general delivery.
Special Delivery
From 1885 to 2001, a service called
special delivery was
available, which caused a separate delivery to the final location
earlier in the day than the usual daily rounds.
Forwarding and holds
Residential customers can fill out a form to forward mail to a new
address, and can also send pre-printed forms to any of their
frequent correspondents. They can also put their mail on "hold",
for example, while on vacation. The Post Office will store mail
during the hold, instead of letting it overflow in the mailbox.
These services are not available to large buildings and customers
of a
commercial mail
receiving agency, where mail is subsorted by non-Post Office
employees into individual mailboxes.
Employment in the USPS

A Rural Letter Carrier from
The USPS
employs more people than any company in the United States except
Wal-Mart
. It employed 790,000 personnel in 2003,
divided into offices, processing centers, and actual post
offices.
Labor unions representing USPS employees
include the
National Association of
Letter Carriers (NALC), which represents city letter carriers,
the
National
Rural Letter Carriers' Association (NRLCA), which represents
rural letter carriers, the
National Postal Mail
Handler's Union (NPMHU), which represents mail handlers, and
the
American Postal
Workers Union (APWU), which represents clerks, maintenance
employees, and motor vehicle service workers. While union
membership is voluntary, city carriers are organized near 90%
nationally.
USPS employees are divided into three major crafts according to the
work they engage in:
- Mail carriers,
also referred to as mailmen or mail-carriers are divided into two
categories: City carriers, who are represented by
the NALC, and Rural Letter
Carriers, who are represented by the NRLCA. City
carriers are paid hourly with the potential for overtime. City
Carriers are also subject to "undertime" on a daily basis.
Undertime (extra work fit into your 8 hours) is a tool postal
management uses to redistribute and eliminate overtime costs, often
based on mail volume projections from the DOIS (Delivery Operations
Information System) computer program. City Carrier routes are
adjusted and/ or eliminated based on information (length, time, and
overall workload) also controlled by this program - much to the
chagrin of the city carrier union. Rural carriers are under a form
of salary called “evaluated hours”, usually
with overtime built in to their pay. The evaluated hours are
created by having all mail counted for a period of two or four
weeks, and a formula used to create the set dollar amount they will
be paid for each day worked until the next time the route is
counted.
- Mail handlers and processors, who prepare mail
and parcels for delivery.
- Clerks, who directly handle customer needs and
sort standard and bulk-rate mail. Data Conversion Operators, who
encode address information at Remote Encoding Centers, are also
members of the clerk craft.
Other non-managerial positions in the USPS include:
- Maintenance and custodians, who see to the
overall operation and cleaning of mail sorting machines, work
areas, public parking and general facility operations.
- Transitional employees (TEs), who are hired
for terms up to one year or longer (with contract renewal), are
given the same hourly base pay as a Part Time Flexible carrier, but
receive no benefits. Transitional employees may be released at any
time by the USPS and can be represented by the NALC.
Though the USPS employs many individuals, as more Americans send
information via
e-mail, fewer postal workers
are needed to work dwindling amounts of mail. Post offices and mail
facilities are constantly downsizing, replacing craft positions
with new machines and consolidating mail routes. A major round of
job cuts, early retirements, and a construction freeze were
announced on March 20, 2009.
Environmental record
The United States Postal Service has been given the WasteWise
Partner of the Year eight times. USPS is also the only shipping/
mailing company in the United States that has received the Cradle
to CradleSM certification, which they received in 2007. In order to
receive this certification, the company’s products undergo intense
reviews in many areas including: the use of renewable energy and
efficient water use during production, and strategies for social
responsibility, among others.
The USPS is taking more than 500 old postal trucks off of the road
and replacing them with newer, larger trucks, which will result in
numerous benefits for the environment: (1) decreasing the amount of
CO2 emissions by replacing the vintage vehicles with cleaner, more
fuel efficient year 2000 vehicles, (2) the use of larger vehicles
will reduce the number of miles that USPS vehicles travel. The
average fuel economy of the Post Office fleet in 2008 was 10.30
miles per gallon.
In addition to this environmental initiative, the USPS recycles
about 2 trillion pounds of plastic, paper, and other materials
yearly.
Violence as "Going Postal"
In the early 1990s, widely publicized workplace shootings by
disgruntled employees at USPS facilities led to a postal regulation
that prohibits the possession of firearms in all postal facilities.
Due to media coverage, postal employees gained a reputation among
the general public as being
mentally
ill. The USPS Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace found
that "Postal workers are only a third as likely as those in the
national workforce to be victims of homicide at work."
This stereotype in turn has influenced American culture, as seen in
the slang term "
going postal" (see
Patrick Sherrill for information on
his August 20, 1986, rampage) and the computer game
Postal. Also, in the opening
sequence of
Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final
Insult, a yell of "Disgruntled postal workers" is heard,
followed by the arrival of postal workers with machine guns. In an
episode of
Seinfeld, the character
Newman, who is a mailman,
explained in a dramatic monologue that postal workers "go crazy and
kill everyone" because the mail never stops. In
The
Simpsons episode
Sunday,
Cruddy Sunday,
Nelson Muntz
asks Postmaster Bill if has he "ever gone crazy and shot up the
place", with a reply of, "The day of the disgruntled postman went
out with the
Macarena".
However, there have been over thirty acts of postal mass shootings,
resulting in death, recorded and investigated by authorities since
1983. The last postal shooting incident occurred in 2006.
In fiction
- In the 1947 classic film, Miracle on 34th Street, the
identity of Kris Kringle (played by Edmund
Gwenn) as the one and only "Santa Claus" was validated by a
state court, based on the delivery of 21 bags of mail (famously
carried into the courtroom) to the character in question. The
contention was that it would have been illegal for the United
States Post Office to deliver mail that was addressed to "Santa
Claus" to the character "Kris Kringle" unless he was, in fact, the
one and only Santa Claus. Judge Henry X. Harper (played by Gene Lockhart) ruled that since the US
Government had demonstrated through the delivery of the bags of
mail that Kris Kringle was Santa Claus, the State of New York did
not have the authority to overrule that decision.
- In the TV series Seinfeld,
Newman is an employee at the USPS,
which is portrayed in the series as a powerful, nefarious
organization. He claims that ZIP codes are
meaningless; no mail carrier has successfully delivered more than
50% of their mail (a feat he compares to the 3-minute mile); and
that several postal workers go on killing sprees because, as he
puts it, "the mail never stops." In one episode, Cosmo Kramer is abducted by Post Office
security men for running an anti-mail campaign after he realizes
the Postal Service has become obsolete.
- The TV series Cheers featured
John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin, a USPS worker and a regular in
the bar. Ratzenberger, along with the rest of the show's cast,
appears in an induction video for U.S. Postal Services staff.
- Charles Bukowski published a
novel in 1971 about his decade-long employment as a postal worker
in Los Angeles. Though it is couched as a "novel," his book
"Post Office" is, like all of
his fiction and verse, written almost entirely from his own
experiences. It does for the Post Office what Ben Hamper did for
the automobile industry in his book "Rivethead", offering a behind
the scenes glimpse of life on the line.
See also
References
Specific references:
-
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/08/news/economy/postal_service/index.htm
- Presidential Succession Act of 1947, 3 U.S.C. Section 19
-
delivery.http://www.classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/article_130.shtml
- U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, The Post Office Flies
The Mail
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm
- Dolan v. United States
Postal Service, .
- United States Postal Serv. v. Flamingo Indus. (USA)
Ltd., .
- United States Postal Serv. v. Greenburgh Civic Ass'ns,
.
- http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs08/chpt2_pg10.htm
- Geddes, Rick. "Do Vital Economists Reach a Policy Conclusion on
Postal Reform?" (April 2004). [1]
- Neither Snow nor Sleet... Can Dampen This Monopoly
Rick Geddes from the Hoover Institution talks about rural
subsidies
- Postal Service to renew Idaho backcountry mail route
Alyson Outen, KTVB-TV, April 10, 2009
- Idaho delegation gets reversal on backcountry mail
delivery decision
- http://www.usps.com/postallaw/universalpostalservice.htm
- Telegraph
- V-Mail
- ECOM
- http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/vision2013.htm
- Government Performance and Results Act 0f 1993, P.L. 103-62,
([2])
- A Customer's Guide to Mailing
- USPS list of abbreviations
- USPS postal addressing standards
- http://www.usps.com/all/postagepayoptions/welcome.htm
-
http://www.usps.com/send/postagepermitimprintsandmeters/precancelledstamps.htm
- Postal Rates Set to Go Up on May 14. March 20,
2007.
- New
Prices Coming May 12, 2008
- Advanced Preparation and Special Postage Payment
Systems - Manifest Mailing System - Electronic Verification
System
- USPS Memo To Mailers - August 2006 "Making It
E-Easy For High-Volume Shippers"
- Approved USPS eVS Mailers
- Mail$ALL USPS FAQ - Domestic Classes of Mail
Estimated Delivery Time
-
http://www.usps.com/all/insuranceandextraservices/welcome.htm?from=household&page=insuranceandextras
- Executive Order No. 10501
-
http://www.usps.com/send/waystosendmail/extraservices/registeredmailservice.htm
- USPS - Domestic Money Orders
-
http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/_pdf/PostalSavingsSystem.pdf
- USPS International Mail Manual, Issue 35
- USPS - First Class Mail International
- USPS press release, 8 June 2004, Release No. 40,
FEDEX TO DELIVER PREMIUM POSTAL INT'L SERVICE, retrieved 10
October 2007
- USPS International Mail - Frequently Asked
Questions, retrieved 10 October 2007
- USPS FAQ - Mailing to military personnel
- Air mail route grounded for Central Idaho backcountry,
an April 2009 article from The Idaho Statesman
- Idaho delegation gets reversal on backcountry mail
delivery decision, Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and
Representative Walt Minnick press release, May 7, 2009
-
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/direct-marketing-direct-mail/316648-1.html
- http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs08/chpt4_pg46.htm
- Glossary of Postal Terms
- http://www.usps.com/alternateaccess/selfserve.htm
- Chicago's 24-Hour Postal Service Comes To An
End by Cheryl Corley. All Things Considered, National
Public Radio. 5 June 2009.
- http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs08/chpt4_pg38.htm
- http://www.lunewsviews.com/consolidations.htm
- About.com, "Sunday Mail Service in a Christian Nation",
Austin Cline, 19 February 2006, retrieved 10 October 2007
- "The United States Postal Service: An American History
1775 – 2006".
- USPS - Express Mail Delivery Chart, retrieved 10
October 2007
- http://www.historyorb.com/events/april/13 and
http://www.historyorb.com/events/april/15
-
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-diary/2009/01/postmaster_proposes_a_cutback.html
- City Delivery
- Deliveries per Day
- USPS - Home Delivery
- USPS FAQ - Caller Service, multiple pickups for
a fee
- USPS FAQ - Firm Holdout Service, free pickup
once a day
- USPS FAQ - Do I qualify for free box
service?
- USPS FAQ - Hardship / Medical Problems
- USPS FAQ - Mail service available for the
homeless
- USPS FAQ - Commercial Mail Receiving Agency
(CMRA)
-
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/20/post.office.cuts/index.html
-
http://inventorspot.com/articles/the_postal_service_goes_greener_12792
Iventorspot Retrieved May 12, 2008
- http://www.bell-inc.com/about/news_detail.lasso?id=44 Bell
Incorporated Retrieved May 12, 2008
- http://www.epa.gov/ProjectXL/usps/ EPA Retrieved May 13,
2008
- http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs08/chpt4_pg44.htm
- USPS Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace, 31
January 2006, retrieved 10 October 2007
General references:
External links