The cost of everything has been skyrocketing over the past year. Americans have been forced to shell out record amounts of money for gasoline, food, electronics ... and now postage. On July 10, the United States Postal Service (USPS) increased postage for a 1-ounce letter from 58 cents to 60 cents. Postage was also upped last August (from 55 cents to 58 cents) as part of the USPS’ 10-year plan to improve the beleaguered agency’s finances. Despite these efforts, and a Congressional “reform” plan to fix the USPS, America’s mail carrier is on the path to fiscal ruin. Rather than bilk consumers through rate hikes, postal leadership should focus on much-needed spending and pricing reforms.

The USPS is in rough fiscal shape, having lost more than $90 billion over the past 15 years. America’s mail carrier faces roughly $200 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt without any real plan to get back into the black. Rather than curbing administrative expenses and consolidating its overbuilt network, the agency successfully lobbied Congress to absolve its debts via the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (signed into law on April 6). The law simply shifts the USPS’ gargantuan retirement liabilities to Medicare, a program that already has significant financial issues of its own. Medicare expenditures total about $800 billion annually, and the program’s main trust fund will almost certainly be depleted by the end of the decade. The creation of a Medicare-linked Postal Service Health Benefits Program only adds fuel to that fiscal fire without doing anything to cut down on postal red ink.

USPS leadership insist on increasing letter postage despite a plan to slow down roughly 40 percent of first-class mail. While it is easy to dismiss each consecutive rate hike as minor and insignificant, the series of implemented and planned price increases will result in consumers paying at least $35 billion more for mail through 2030. These hikes will do plenty to add to Americans’ pocketbook woes, but little to tame the agency’s $200 billion surge of red ink. And because the USPS has been relieved of responsibility for its retirement liabilities, any inbound revenue won’t address compensation costs. Medicare will still be on a ruinous course even if revenue from postage hikes come to fruition. That’s a big if, given that Americans have shown over the past 20 years that they’re more than willing to embrace alternatives to paper mail.