WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a campaign called “Every Door Direct Mail,” the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The Postal Service is facing such a cash crunch that it has a $12.1 billion loan outstanding from Treasury.
But taxpayers will be paid back, especially after Congress acts to help save the Postal Service, according to most experts.
This is one in a series of articles highlighting Breaking Gov’s best stories of the past year. As we reflected on our 2011 coverage of innovation, technology and management amongst the federal agencies and workforce, this was among the stories that stood out as delivering key insight into the top issues facing today’s government community.
The past year has seen the 200-year-old U.S. Postal Service in crisis and its future remains grim. Keep reading →
The holiday season will provide the struggling U.S. Postal Service with a much needed infusion of revenue, but hardly enough to stop its financial meltdown.
As the mail service heads into the holidays buckling under a $5.1 billion debt, sending packages is just about the only business line that’s growing and in the black. Keep reading →
A Senate panel passed a bipartisan deal to save the U.S. Postal Service.
The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-to-1 to pass the deal, which buys out some employees, cuts worker compensation benefits for some retirees and maintains Saturday mail service for two more years. Keep reading →
A new Senate plan emerged Wednesday to save the U.S. Postal Service from going belly up and keep Saturday delivery service for at least two years, but it also includes laying off 100,000 workers to balance its budget.
The proposal would keep the agency “from the brink of bankruptcy,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. But it still contains a number of painful fixes for the 200-year-old institution that is more than $9 billion in debt. Keep reading →
A penny hike in the cost of a first class stamp will help the financially-strapped U.S. Postal Service bring in $888 million a year but it’s not enough to save many jobs, according to a Cornell University management expert.
Rick Geddes, an expert on the Postal Service, tells Breaking Gov that the price hike is just a small part of massive changes the agency must undergo as it tries to solve its budget deficit and huge loss of mail volume since 2007. The Postal Service will still have to close rural offices and big sorting centers to downsize to today’s mail economy. Keep reading →
The U.S. Postal Service is facing a dire financial crisis, but it is not alone. The postal services of other nations also have felt the impact of electronic communications and private sector competition, and have been undergoing significant transformations.
Germany and the Netherlands have embraced privatization. Great Britain is moving slowly in that direction with its Royal Mail. The postal services in Australia and Canada have no Saturday delivery, and other countries are reaching the inevitable conclusion that mail service has to change. Keep reading →
The Postal Service presented a proposal to Congress on Tuesday that might stave off financial collapse but would have far-reaching ramifications for federal workers.
Postal officials say they will be unable to make this month’s $5.5 billion payment to cover future employee health care costs because the agency will have reached its borrowing limit and doesn’t have enough cash. The Postal Service has proposed ending Saturday mail delivery and is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs as it faces a second straight year of losses of $8 billion or more. A decline in mail because of the Internet and the loss of revenue from advertising amid the economic downturn have taken a toll on the agency. Keep reading →