Postal Service Holds Back on Closures

It’s no secret that many Americans are struggling to save enough for their retirement. Once upon a time, it was common for employers to bear the responsibility for worker’s well being after retirement through defined-benefit pensions. Today, if a worker is lucky, he will have the opportunity to invest in a 401(k) plan, usually with his employer providing matching contributions up to a certain amount. It’s now the worker’s responsibility to make sure he puts away enough each month, and that the investments he chooses are a good value.

(Reuters) - The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will offer buyouts this summer to nearly all of its 45,000 mail handlers, part of a plan to consolidate operations at 140 mail-processing facilities in the next year. The mail agency, which lost $3.2 billion in the first three months of 2012, plans to begin this summer moving mail-processing activities away from smaller sites to reduce annual costs.

The United States Postal Service has been in trouble for some time, having, for instance, rung up losses in 16 of the last 18 quarters. 

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August. (MORE: U.S.

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August. (MORE: U.S.

The US Postal Service may be a woefully overstaffed anachronism of a bygone era, with a painfully mismatched cost and revenue structure, which last year reported a massive, and record, $15.9 billion annual loss for the last Fiscal year, but that doesn't mean it is going away without a fight. As of yesterday, the USPS valiantly hiked the price of first-class mail by another 2.6%, to 46 cents, up from the 45 cents which in turn was hiked a year previously.