•Press Release Government Jobs United States
Washington DC — When the United States Postal Service (USPS) buckled under the weight of the 2020 holiday package load, there were many calls for change. CEPR’s Max B. Sawicky has followed the ups and downs of the USPS and asks whether the impending rescue will go beyond stopgap measures.
In Postal Service Reform: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?, released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Sawicky gives an update on the political reality of the attempts to transform or reform the USPS. Specifically, he fleshes out the players and agendas behind and around a reform bill from Rep. Peter DeFazio, and another plan from the USPS Board of Governors. A new postal banking bill is also in the mix.
“What is safe to say is that the emerging deal continues to view the USPS mission narrowly, limited to delivering mail and packages, and reliant on its own revenues,” is Sawicky’s assessment. “As such, this framework going forward threatens further service cutbacks, reductions in USPS labor standards, and privatization of selected USPS operations.”
In September 2020, Sawicky authored The US Postal Service is a National Asset. Don’t Trash It. In that, he wrote, “Rather than ruminate on ways to carve up the service until revenues cover costs, consider its unique assets and ask what more could the USPS do in the national interest.” He is still asking.
