President Donald Trump on Thursday, April 12, 2018, signed an executive order setting up a task force to study the United States Postal Service® (USPS®) and recommend reforms. There is strong support from the Mailing Industry on this effort to help bring to light the issues that the USPS is facing.
According to the order, the task force will evaluate the operations and finances of the USPS. That includes examining the Postal Service’s role in competitive markets, the state of its business model, workforce, operations, costs and pricing. The task force is also ordered to look at the decline in mail volume and how that affects the USPS’ self-financing and the agency’s monopoly over letter delivery and mailboxes.
“The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout,” Trump said in the executive order.
The USPS has incurred “$65 billion of cumulative losses since the 2007-2009 recession,” the document said. It added that the agency had been unable to make payments for its retiree health benefit obligations that “totaled more than $38 billion” at the end of fiscal 2017.
“It shall be the policy of my Administration that the United States postal system operate under a sustainable business model to provide necessary mail services to citizens and businesses, and to compete fairly in commercial markets,” Trump wrote.
The task force is asked to submit a report on its findings and recommendations to Trump within 120 days of the signing of the executive order.