Opinion

A day off

TBO.com
Published: February 14, 2013

We would like to welcome the United States Postal Service to the 21st century. Well, maybe we should say the 20th century. We don't want to get carried away here.

Postmaster Patrick Donahoe announced on Feb. 5 that the Postal Service will no longer deliver mail to homes and businesses on Saturdays, effective Aug. 5. It will still deliver packages on Saturdays, and people will be able to get their mail on Saturdays if they have a post office box.

The end of Saturday home mail delivery is supposed to save the Postal Service some $2 billion a year. The Postal Service lost nearly $16 billion last year, so the projected Saturday savings is only partially good news.

The Postal Service faces rising costs at a time when the volume of mail it delivers, despite a monopoly on first-class mail, is falling after reaching an all-time peak in 2006. As the price of sending mail rises, more and more people are switching to email and text messaging and online bill payments. The Postal Service has reduced its employee ranks by some 193,000 since 2008, but red ink remains a problem.

Defenders of the Postal Service status quo say a 2006 law that changed the way the service has to account for its retiree health care costs is the real reason for the post office's money problems.

Perhaps, but six-day-a-week home delivery of mail is a business model that is increasingly running against the tide. As a result, more changes such as the end of Saturday home delivery are no doubt inevitable.