[buymycards]

Hi Barry, you are correct. The problem is that a law passed by our Congress limits our price increases to the annual cost of living increases, so we cannot raise prices enough to meet the cost of processing a first class letter.

We have been asked 100's of times - why didn't you just raise the price to 50 cents rather than 49 cents? The answer is - we cannot, because of this law.

In addition, whenever the Postal Service proposes a price increase, the lobbyists come out of the woodwork to battle these increases. Paper companies, logging companies, Amazon, Walmart, newspapers and magazine publishers, trucking companies, all 4 of the Postal Unions - the list is endless. So, the Postal Regulatory Commission compromises, and usually the Postal Service is left holding the bag.

My thoughts are that we should emulate some of the other countries by charging for specific services like holding mail, forwarding mail, etc. Then, maybe, we could properly staff our offices so situations like Pete's don't happen. Every PO that I am aware of is horribly short staffed and we don't have enough employees to properly serve the public. Situations like Pete had yesterday shouldn't happen, but in most PO's there just aren't enough people to take care of everybody. During December I was working 55-60 hours a week, including Saturday and Sunday, because we don't have enough people and we aren't allowed to hire anyone. Since I am a salaried employee, I don't receive OT or extra pay, but we have to move the mail.

Rick