Heads Up: USPS Rate Hike Incoming! Mail Your Ponies Early

[WingsOfMasquerade]

Another Heads Up from the business world with an article & warning...and good news?
The bad:
Rate HIKES incoming starting Oct 18 thru Dec 27 (to cramp on Christmas, no doubt)
The good:
They're TEMPORARY. They're going back to normal after Dec 27th.

What this means:
If you're planning Xmas mailings, do it before the Oct. 18th to avoid the hikes. Same thing if you're trying to sell lots on ebay to work up holiday dollars, best to do it before the hikes start scaring buyers away. Also, it's going to affect everybody, even Amazon, UPS and FedEx because they all use the USPS to 'last mile' stuff to rural folks and use it's other functions as well.

You can read more with this article, that lists out the percentages & talks more
https://www.mytotalretail.com/post/u-s-postal-service-announces-holiday-rate-increase/#ne=0065d23431c01fcbd798f468b360e9ac&utm_source=total-retail-report&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=2020-08-22

Can anything be done about it by normal people?
Yes, if you live in the US.
Use this website

https://5calls.org/issue/usps-postal-service-covid-funding

To help you send emails, regular letters, and call political people in your state to influence them to:
#1 Stop DeJoy (man who is removing mail sorting machines)
#2 Stop the 2006 "postal pension prefunding act" (reason why usps in trouble now & doing this)
#3 Give it covid funding help like other big businesses got (because mail went up but workers went down b/c virus)

If anybody contacts any of these government guys, it MUST be recorded what you sent them/what you said, even if you only get a call center or you 'think they threw the letter out' ---they are not allowed. So if anyone does anything it gets recorded & the more people who do it the better it is. Changes are already happening in one state people screamed the house down so they plugged back in the mail sorter machine and pushed DeJoy down....but only because enough people yelled.

If you hate calling you can use this
https://action.foe.org/page/21776/action/1?ea.tracking.id=Email&ea.url.id=565750&forwarded=true
Senator makes over 3000 dollars per week, so they can receive a pre-written (but alterable) email from you with that form & it must be recorded.

[banditpony]

USPS article:
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0814-usps-announces-temporary-price-increase.htm
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It doesn't appear to usps retail for first class or priority. So prices remain the same by printing from USPS.com, or going to the post office.

But it would effect the discount you get if you print from paypal, ebay, or stamps.com -- because it effects the commercial discount rate.

I think there are a lot of deep rooted issues with how the USPS is run these days. That's not an issue that will be fixed overnight, and it requires people in government to care about the issue.

They are short on people. They prefer workers do overtime to avoid paying for new people benefits. I'd rather pay a bit more so my package comes to me on time then get more delayed. I assume with this increase they are hiring temporary workers?

[achab1984]

Thank you for sharing this! Of course things are going to go up! My buying power has gotten a lot less anymore. I look back at what I was making in 2007 and it was a lot better back then even though I was making way less. Its pretty sad!

[lovesbabysquirmy]

oh yeah I have been sharing info on this mess, back at the beginning of the year...  

i'm sad it's not getting any better, because online shopping, especially for collectors' items, almost always involves the USA or insane pricing.  I rarely ever find anything I want to buy on Amazon LOL