Americans Cling To The Idea Of The USPS’ Existence, But We Can’t Really Explain Why

(frankieleon)

When the United States Postal Service floated the idea of taking away Saturday mail delivery, Americans basically gasped and yowled, “Noo! You can’t!” We love getting mail every day but Sunday, downright adore it, but… why? That’s a lot harder to explain.

A lot like when someone asks you why your favorite chair is your favorite chair, a report from the USPS Office Inspector General says Americans can’t quite say what they’d miss about the mail if it disappeared. It’s not like shredding junk mail is fun for everyone (just kidding, who doesn’t love a good shredder?).

“People seemed to sense that the Postal Service disappearing would be a bad thing, but they had trouble articulating more specifically how this would affect them personally,” the report says, via CNNMoney.

The report was commissioned by the office to ask 101 people in 10 focus groups around the country about what they like and don’t like about their mail service. Those answers came together in a white paper called: “What America Wants and Needs from the Postal Service.”

It kind of sounds like we’re just holding onto the USPS because we’ve known it for so long, a nostalgic desire to see it keep going “because of its importance to the American people.”

There were only two naysayers who were like “shrug,” and said they wouldn’t be “negatively affected” if the USPS were to close down forever in five years. One of those was a 92-year-old woman who visits her local post office daily. She won’t be around, so, no big deal.

“I’ll be dead by then,” she said, according to the report.

While most people want the USPS to stay alive, the more they learned about how the agency works and the financial problems plaguing it, it seems like they became more open to cuts in either mail delivery days or post office hours, if it means the USPS won’t be put down.

And once participants realized that the USPS isn’t a taxpayer funded agency that instead has its own revenue to worry about, people lowered their “service level expectations.”

The USPS is still in the midst of figuring out how to pay the billions it owes in future retiree pension funds and deal with a changing mail landscape, from one of snail mail letters keeping loved ones in touch to simply a funnel for junk mail.

Americans crazy about mail, but can’t say why [CNNMoney]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist