Second Quarter FY Results and Updates
Second Quarter Results
The United States Postal Service released their second quarter (January 1, 2018 – March 31, 2018) results reporting a total revenue of $17.5 billion. Compared to the same quarter last year, this is an increase of $235 million. Shipping and Packages revenue increased by $445 million, with First-Class and Marketing Mail revenue decreasing by a combined total of $181 million.
Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan states, “Despite growth in our package business, our financial results reflect systemic trends in the marketplace and the effects of an inflexible, legislatively mandated business model that limits our ability to generate sufficient revenue and imposes costs upon us that we cannot afford.”
Brennan went on to state that, “America needs a financially strong Postal Service that can invest in its future and can continue to fulfill the needs of American businesses and consumers. With continued aggressive management and greater legal authority to respond to changes in our marketplace and to control our costs, the Postal Service can return to financial sustainability.”
President Trump Signs Executive Order
In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a task force to study the USPS system and to submit a report with recommendations. This task force has 120 days to complete the study. President Trump states that the USPS is on “an unsustainable financial path” and “must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout.”
The Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers met with several members of the President’s Task Force on the United States Postal System at the end of May. The Alliance felt that “They do not seem satisfied with the partial efforts to reform the postal system underway in other quarters” and “they are very interested in the nonprofit sector of the postal system.”
The task force will complete their study by August 10, 2018 with an internal, cross-agency review which could potentially last up to 60 days. The Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers states, “We do not expect either Congress or the Postal Regulatory Commission to act on their partial efforts before the President’s Task Force issues its report. The worst-case scenario, however, still hangs over the mailing community for up to 7 percent rate increases in January 2019 if the PRC acts precipitously.”
