Saturday Mail Delivery to End, Postal Service Announces

Calling the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model “no longer sustainable,” the U.S. Postal Service Wednesday morning announced it will eliminate Saturday delivery of mail starting Aug. 1.

Post offices will remain open Saturdays and package deliveries will occur on Saturdays, according to the U.S. Postal Service. 

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the reasons are continued economic struggles and the increasing use of the Internet for communications and bill paying by consumers. The U.S. Postal Service is also the only federal agency required to pre-fund health benefits for retirees, and those costs are escalating quickly.

“Our current business model of delivering mail six days a week is no longer sustainable. We must change in order to remain an integral part of the American community for decades to come.”

Saturday is the lightest mail delivery day by volume and many businesses are closed on Saturdays, according to the U.S. Postal Service. However, many residents receive print magazines and ads on Saturdays in the mail that may be shifted to another day.

A Rasmussen poll on mail delivery in 2012 showed “Three-out-of-four Americans (75%) would prefer the U.S. Postal Service cut mail delivery to five days a week rather than receive government subsidies to cover ongoing losses.”

A USA Today/Gallup poll in 2010 found the majority of U.S. residents surveyed were ok with eliminating Saturday delivery. The March 2010 telephone survey of 999 adults revealed people age 55 and older were more likely than younger people to have used the mail to pay a bill or send a letter in the past two weeks.

Upon reading the announcement Mary Beth Flowers, who owns Flowers by Flowers in Parkville and whose husband is a mail carrier, took to Facebook to express her opinion.

"There's both Positives & Negatives regarding this decision. A pay cut is never good, however having the weekend to do other things will be a great change for us personally," she wrote. "I'm proud of my very hard working letter carrier husband & his fellow co-workers ... Unless you are one, you have No Idea what they deal w/ on a daily basis."

Speak out: How will this change affect you? Will you miss getting mail on Saturdays?