The U. S. Postal Service generally will be barred from raising postage rates beyond the rate of inflation for the next decade under an overhaul passed by Congress.
The new law — the first major changes to the service in more than three decades — aims to stabilize rates for households and bulk mailers and to help the service cope with the challenges of the Internet and compete against delivery companies such as FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc.
The changes should make the Postal Service more attractive to catalog companies and other bulk mailers, by letting them plan costs more accurately.
For consumers, the changes could bring more frequent rate increases, though they would rarely be as large as some recent ones, including an average 8.5% jump proposed in May that would be the biggest price increase in 12 years if it takes effect. Under that, the cost of a first-class postage stamp is supposed to rise to 42 cents in May from the current 39 cents.
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Dan Anderson on January 16th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Heck with a a penny here and a penny there. What do you spend a yr. on postage? I don’t think it effects your lifestyle. How about the 50% increase i just received from my health insurance company it went up from 225 a month to 338 a month. This is going on for too long and you worry about a penny here and a penny there with postage. I companies have to worry about making money solely based on the postage rate they better find a new product to sell. Basically everything is made in china now and the US retailer is selling products now with enormous profits because of cheap child labor. Now they want to put the blame on the Post Office. This inflation idea with the Postal Service is crazy why not tie it in with the whole government accross the board. I sick and tired these bleeding hearts always go after the postal service while they are the only one working on a profit and returning money to the treasury every year since they are not allowed to keep there profits like normal independent companies. Let me remind you the Postal Service is now semi-independent and should be able to run there business w/o the politicians. The politcians have been the biggest roadblock to the Postal Service from keeping rates down. They have been using the Service as a CASH COW for years and i am sick of it. LETS START LOOKING AT THE HEALTH INS. BUSINESS THAT BUSH PUT TOGETHER. My brother inlaw once told me the masses are asses and now i’m starting to believe him!!!