Heads Up-USPS is going up in January!

gwynn_fan

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Hi Guys
A heads up from your now retired USPS employee, postal rates are going up again in most cases. The most noticeable will be that first class letters will go from $0.60 to $0.63 on January 22, 2023. If you mail a lot of cards is SASEs, you might want to buy a bunch of Forever stamps, if you haven't all ready. And, for those who were not aware, you can also get forever in additional ounce stamps and 2 ounce stamps.
Here's the fun part of the world today. I started at the USPS in 1978 and a first class stamp cost $0.03 and a first class letter was usually delivered across the country in 3 days. AND, there was no automation at all. We had the LSM (Letter Sorting Machines) that were all keyed by actual humans. The flat sorter machines were just getting started and all packages were handled by people. Express mail had not yet been conceived, if you wanted it a day earlier, you used Special Delivery which cost a whopping $0.75.
Today, everything you mail is handled by a computerized machine. All letters, flats and parcels goes through machines that cancel the postage, determine the state and city the piece is going to and, then, sort to the proper mail carrier to deliver it to the door. This now takes between 4 to 6 days and a cost of minimum $0.63.
The proposed Mailing Services price changes include:

U.S. Postal Service Announces New Prices for 2023
ProductCurrent PricesPlanned Prices
Letters (1 oz.)60 cents63 cents
Letters (metered 1 oz.)57 cents60 cents
Domestic Postcards44 cents48 cents
International Postcards$1.40$1.45
International Letter (1 oz.)$1.40$1.45
ProductCurrentPlanned Change
Small flat-rate box$10.40$10.20
Medium flat-rate box$17.05$17.10
Large flat-rate box$22.45$22.80
APO/FPO large flat-rate box$20.95$21.20
Regular flat-rate envelope$ 9.90$ 9.65
Legal flat-rate envelope$10.20$ 9.95
Padded flat-rate envelope$10.60$10.40
The complete Postal Service price filings with prices for all products can be found on the PRC website under the Daily Listings section at prc.gov/dockets/daily. For the Shipping Services filing, see Docket No. CP2023-42. The Postal Service provides additional resources to assist customers regarding the price changes. These tools include price lists, downloadable price files and Federal Register Notices. This information will be available on the Postal Service’s Postal Explorer website at pe.usps.com/PriceChange/Index on Wednesday November 16, 2022.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
 
@gwynn_fan

Wow. Letters were 25 cents when I started collecting in 1992, crazy. But not as wild as the 60 cent increase since you started in 1978!
 
@dad3309@ and @gwynn_fan

Congrats on retirement, both of you! Long careers there for sure....lots of changes in that time I am sure. Anytime I hear people complain about the postal service I always ask...if we didn't have mail, what would we do then?

Personally, I have usually had really good experiences with USPS, its not perfect, but nothing is and people need to realize that!!
 
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