After months of mail delay, hundreds of Virginia veterans had their colon cancer screening tests rejected. When their two-day-shipped passport arrived a month late, an Atlanta college student missed a trip to Ghana. After her wedding dress languished weeks in a Houston mail facility, a Texas bride rented one.
Residents and businesses across have reported sluggish U.S. Postal Service mail and package delivery. Due of the delays, Congress has urged the Postal Service to radically change course and raised concerns about how they may affect mail-in ballots in the forthcoming election.
The delays appear to be caused by a new Postal Service system launched last October that would eventually route all mail and shipments through 60 regional distribution centers, akin to the airlines' hub-and-spoke concept.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says the $40 billion, 10-year network revamp will cut costs, increase dependability, and make the Postal Service more competitive. The Office of the Inspector General for the Postal Service, Congress, and advocacy groups say the plan has had the opposite effect in certain cases.
“It’s just a dumpster fire right now,” said former Postal Service manager and Mailers Hub managing director Leo Raymond. He stated delays had delayed customer invoices and deliberately planned marketing material for his members. As a business, you'll be discouraged from using the mail because you want your stuff to arrive.
According to Postal Service inspector general data, 87% of first class, two-day mail delivered on time in the last three months of 2023, down 2.5 percentage points from the same period a year earlier. The data showed that 70% of three-to-five-day mail delivered on time, down 11%.
Last month, Postal Service oversight senator Gary Peters urged the agency to halt distribution network changes to avoid future delays. However, a Peters official said the Postal Service has not indicated it will.
In a March letter to DeJoy, Michigan Democrat Peters raised concerns about USPS's network changes, including the potential for degraded rural service due to fewer facilities, delayed delivery of election mail processed at out-of-state facilities, and critical health information like laboratory tests not being processed same-day due to decreased transportation trips.
Delays have been greatest in Richmond, Virginia, Houston, and metro Atlanta, the first locations to implement the new regional distribution system.
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