US Postal Service Announces Third Quarter Results
In August the US Postal Service announced third quarter results for the period ending 6-30-2016. Despite an operating revenue increase of $1.2 billion over the same quarter in 2015, there was a net loss of $1.6 billion.
Shipping and package volumes increased by $645 million or 18.1%. However, delivering a package involves considerable additional processing expense as compared to delivering First Class Mail. Those expenses include labor hours and transportation. According to the USPS’s Form 10-Q submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission, “For 2015, Shipping and Packages revenues would have needed to increase by 260% in order to make up for the impact of the contribution provided by the volume losses of First-Class Mail for that year . . .”