Is the US Postal Service getting slower?

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

About 30 years ago, I used priority mail regularly to ship PC games. As long as destination was between 100 and 300 miles away, it usually took 2, and occasionally 3 days to get to destination.

I just mailed a package in state to a place 195 miles away, using priority mail. It is going to take 4 days to get there.

Is that typical these days? I'm wondering why it is taking so much longer.

 

[UNCjigga]

USPS is cutting service in order to cut costs, because Congress and the Admin won’t fund it properly and the Postmaster General no longer wants it to compete with commercial carriers. Also, postmarks no longer correspond to mailing dates in order to let the Admin throw out mailed in votes in elections.

 

[MrSquished]

The postal service is socialism for rural people. It takes the most amount of taxpayer subsidies to make rural postal service possible. It's communism. Good riddance.

 

[KMFJD]

you see this in many places since the neolib revolution of the 80's

slowly cut funding for government services so the users start to complain, in turn you open up these markets to private companies to run because they are more efficient (lol, it's not a business it's a fucking service), in turn you generate profit for private business while quality goes down and price goes up because not making a profit is criminal

 

[sandorski]

Let the leeches attach to you....

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The postal service is socialism for rural people. It takes the most amount of taxpayer subsidies to make rural postal service possible. It's communism. Good riddance.

-Yep. Only reason it didn't get taken out behind the barn decades ago is ooops it's in the constitution.

But since we're taking the constitution out behind the barn, it's all fair game now.

 

[IronWing]

About 30 years ago, I used priority mail regularly to ship PC games. As long as destination was between 100 and 300 miles away, it usually took 2, and occasionally 3 days to get to destination.

I just mailed a package in state to a place 195 miles away, using priority mail. It is going to take 4 days to get there.

Is that typical these days? I'm wondering why it is taking so much longer.

Joy ordered many of the regional sorting centers closed. Mail has to travel farther than it used to. A cross town letter in my fair city gets sent to a city a hundred miles away to be sorted and then returned. There are over a million people here but too small to maintain the local sorting center.

 

[UNCjigga]

Joy ordered many of the regional sorting centers closed. Mail has to travel farther than it used to. A cross town letter in my fair city gets sent to a city a hundred miles away to be sorted and then returned. There are over a million people here but too small to maintain the local sorting center.

They’ve also farmed out a lot more of the region to region (cross country) mail transportation to companies like Pitney Bowes. These companies previously handled very little First Class and parcels, and mainly took the bulk mail (marketing mail) as they could cut costs and service quality with no worries about maintaining SLAs.

With fewer truck drivers, fewer trucks and 3PL consolidation for every cubic inch of space in the trailer, it’s really hard for these companies to maintain SLAs and they’ve pushed back on USPS to let them “do what they do” and throw SLAs out the door.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

I saw signs of this back in 2020 and 2021.
(Last full years I worked in the mail room at Portland State University.)

Packages and mail were taking longer to arrive.(Even intercampus mail.)

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Joy ordered many of the regional sorting centers closed. Mail has to travel farther than it used to. A cross town letter in my fair city gets sent to a city a hundred miles away to be sorted and then returned. There are over a million people here but too small to maintain the local sorting center.

This is probably the most annoying part of using USPS IMO. On another note and kinda OT, mailmen/women need to start wearing body cams apparently in Fresno. I guess they've been getting robbed/assaulted lately.

 

[jpiniero]

This is probably the most annoying part of using USPS IMO. On another note and kinda OT, mailmen/women need to start wearing body cams apparently in Fresno. I guess they've been getting robbed/assaulted lately.

I've seen mailmen carrying mace. Granted I don't think it's humans they are concerned about...

 

[balloonshark]

I used to order small rc parts and priority always took two days and first class took 3 days.

What also sucks is that I live in a rural red state and being a postal employee is considered a good job in my state. Why people aren't fighting to keeping UPSP going is beyond maddening.

 

[jpiniero]

Why people aren't fighting to keeping UPSP going is beyond maddening.

Maybe people just don't care.

I actually went to the Post Office to get my mail today. Mostly junk. UPS/Fedex/Amazon handle the stuff people care about.

 

[MrSquished]

I say stop serving the over subsidized rural areas and focus on better service where the margins are better, the cities, which are also the main economic engines of the country anyway

 

[PowerEngineer]

No coincidence that the slowdowns at USPS align well with Republican efforts to restrict mail-in balloting.

How the New USPS Postmark Changes Could Affect Mail Voting

 

[nisryus]

I too noticed that USPS has taken much long now.

We had a delivery via USPS Priority Mail in October 2025. They said expected within 4 days. Took 8 days.

When I shipped a package to my kid in VA from TX, estimated by USPS was 5 days, took 11 days! Soon after I sent him another package. this time took 9 days.

I remember they used to take much short time to deliver...

 

[Hans Gruber]

It's been going downhill since the 90's

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

The postal service is socialism for rural people. It takes the most amount of taxpayer subsidies to make rural postal service possible. It's communism. Good riddance.

Huh, I never really thought about it from that angle. Of course, I guess running electricity out to rural people was socialism, too. We should take all of that away, and make the country people live like they did 300 years ago, right?

I kind of feel like the Postal Service is having a lot of trouble because politicians can't decide whether it should be a government agency or independent agency. Right now, it seems like a hybrid. Historically, the Post Office was a social meeting gathering place in town for everybody. It served a real purpose. However, there is so much competition for package delivery these days. I wonder if they need to switch to a model where they just have your items at the post office, or things are only delivered once a week to remote locations.

 

[lxskllr]

USPS is still pretty good where I am.

Everyone should have USPS service, regardless of cost. That's what being a (former)first world country is. If you aren't making money, well suck it up. Of all the shit that loses money, USPS isn't even on my radar. I'd be willing to cut back on daily deliveries, even as far as going to once a week for rural addresses, but there should be service for everyone.

Private companies can get fucked. USPS is my first choice.

 

[MrSquished]

Huh, I never really thought about it from that angle. Of course, I guess running electricity out to rural people was socialism, too. We should take all of that away, and make the country people live like they did 300 years ago, right?

I kind of feel like the Postal Service is having a lot of trouble because politicians can't decide whether it should be a government agency or independent agency. Right now, it seems like a hybrid. Historically, the Post Office was a social meeting gathering place in town for everybody. It served a real purpose. However, there is so much competition for package delivery these days. I wonder if they need to switch to a model where they just have your items at the post office, or things are only delivered once a week to remote locations.

That's right that was socialism too. So are the roads out there. Education and hospitals. Education and hospitals

Everything the rural right gets is socialism. And they vote like evil people. So I say take it all away. Fuck those bastards. Don't you agree? They've earned it right?