February 6, 2013 7:41 AM
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ– The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it 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. Saturday mail cutback would not begin until August.
The move allows the USPS to focus on package delivery which has increased by 14% since 2010, At the same time technology which aids in package delivery has caught up with the delivery of letters and other mail declining significantly with the ever increasing use of email and other Internet based technologies. .
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. and Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.
The Postal Service for some time has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages . The US Postal Service is an independent agency that gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
The agency would need congressional approval to make the change and It was not immediately if that would be forth coming or even necessary.
Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general , says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
