As most of you already know, the post office has seen declining first class mail and continues to look for ways to cut costs. This morning Patrick R. Donahoe announced that the post office has plans to cut out Saturday delivery of first class, periodicals and catalogs starting August 1, 2013. Packages will continue to be delivered on Saturdays.

Why keep the buildings open, the trucks rollin’, and the people workin’ just for packages?

Also, in the old days (1900s) post offices were in hardware stores and other businesses.
Why not use Convenience Stores located in gas stations? They are open 24/7.

The carriers union (NALC) is against any change. Unions are always against change!

I agree reduce to five day or even 3 day. People can still go to office to mail things 6 days a week unless it is one of their 25 holidays where they are closed, but still paying employees.

I just can't believe they lost billions last year with all the political ads I got. Can't imagine with no election this year how much they will lose.

The way to remove junk snail mail is to phase out bulk rates. If a business has to pay 1st class postage on their advertising, they'll start being a little more selective in who they mail it to.

I'd even argue for a new mail class 0 (zero) class mail. If you don't put a business or individual's name on the address, it will cost twice what the current 1st class letter costs. Then let people opt out of mail that isn't specifically addressed to them.

I would have handled it differently. i would have gone to every other day delivery of mail. i.e Monday Wednesday and Friday. Saturday would be optional if you wanted to pay for Saturday delivery.
Why didn't the Post Office reduce staffing?
They are clearly oversaffed.. they could have saved more money.. save the taxpayers more money. Instead they are going to find work for the people they don't need. The power of the Unions!

You can't cut it back too much. The volume of mail would impossible too deal with but I think we coulg get used to M-W-F.

Drop Sat delivery will save 2B so drop Tues and Thur to save another 4B.

I agree with removing Saturday delivery, but some of you confuse me.
How is the post office responsible for junk mail and cutting down trees? They are the messenger not the contributor. You will still receive the same amount of junk mail but it will only come 5 days a week.
Do any of you stop to think what the cost of a regular stamp would be without all that junk mail? Your average letter cost would sky rocket.
As far as changing your quality of life that one really has me confused. How does ending Saturday delivery cut into your quality of life? Maybe you don’t receive a magazine on Saturday and you have to wait until Monday. If that is a quality of life changer then I have to reevaluate how I look at my quality of life.
All this just makes me wonder.

Just think how many trees are thrown away daily. The USPS has to be one of the biggest contributors to this there is. At work I probably get 300lbs of junk mail a year, and at home 50lbs. It goes directly from the box to the garbage can.

I think cutting back to less than 5 would be a popular move, why not 2 or even 1 like trash day?

Why stop w/just Saturday. Every other day would suffice.
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And I am with vnvet7071, as I also put it through the shredder and use it to start fires in my fire ring.

vnvet7071 - Please quit stalking me.

Excellent. Less trips to the mailbox to bother with. Two days per week would be enough.

I would rather get five tons on junk mail than one Progressive insurance commercial or watch that guy on the fall through the roof in the Allstate ad. We have to pay for the TV ads. All junk mail costs us is a trip to the trash can which is not that far from the mail box. I would not be bothered by not getting mail on Saturday. It would be easy enough to pick the day I did not want delivery and just not go the the mailbox that day.

Just one added comment...
I hate junk mail as much as anyone...
But if it weren't for junk mail, the US Postal Service would have been broke years ago..

Where I live, the Postal Service has done away with Saturday delivery for years now. I don't miss it. Also, some pharmacies here have a fully functional Postal service that is open longer hours than the USPS. These stores are also allowed to make a profit for providing these services.

Also, they have just recently eliminated the penny as well, saving the taxpayers even more money, and I don't miss the pennies at all!

If the USPS was/is loosing money, why did they sponsor Lance Armstrong for 7 million? I am always amazed that a government agency like the USPS needs a marketing department and can spend that kind of money. Apparently the USPS marketing department is not doing it's job because they are still loosing money. I don't care one way or the other about Saturday delivery.

They would save alot more money if they stopped all deliveries on Saturday and just kept the office open for people who can't get there during the week.

Every time I get a piece of junk mail I email/contact the mailer and ask to be removed from their mailing list. In 2 years I have contacted almost 100 different companies and had about a 95% success rate, even with Charter and AT&T. The worst by far have been Harms Kia/Subaru and those MailSouth coupon flyers everyone gets in the city.

Oh Sigma what did we say about attitudes ?? Anyways...junk mail ? Bring it on I heat my house with it. Well, in a round about way, I put it through the shredder and use it to start fires in the mornings. Also works great for starting Bon-fires outside. Delivery on Saturdays ? Naw, don't need it, could even go for every other day delivery, or once a week would do it too.

I think no matter what they do, we will adapt to the change. I am actually in favor of the cut back to save them some money. Because in the end if they do not do something, the ones who will pay will be ourselves in higher fees and higher stamp prices. And perhaps they should take a look at the wages that a postal delivery person makes. I think the unions created this problem and perhaps the unions should be the ones to come up with the ways to fix it and not put it on the citizens of this country.

Don't really care.
No problem here..

A fair number of people still get paid by check either because they work for an employer who still pays with check or because they can't do direct deposit for other reasons. I used to be one of them; I usually got paid on Monday, but when I lived further east, it was every Saturday. It makes a big difference when you're paid very little and have to support a family waiting those extra 2 days. Comments like this are what the USPS expects: junk mail and bills. No one cares about the working poor who might be affected. If we ALL had direct deposit (and could all get bank accounts), I would worry far less. As it is, my boss FINALLY got direct deposit 6 months ago, but there are a lot of work-from-home people like me, and not all of us live close to our employers and thus, checks get mailed. I remember the feeling when, every postal holiday, my check *might* come Tuesday, and praying it'd be there and being uncertain. Cutting back means a lot more uncertainty for people who might have trouble paying for day-care or groceries...things that can't wait until later. Keep in mind, a lot of people who live in apartments are also LAST mail of the day; getting paid Saturday at 4ish isn't great, but try waiting until Monday at 4ish (or TUESDAY on postal holidays). It might make the difference between going on government programs for some working-poor who always had just enough before and did not want to sign up, but qualified. You can talk about planning ahead...people try to plan ahead, but it is not always possible to plan that far ahead (and really, if YOU get paid every 2 weeks, clockwork, it's easy to preach at others about planning ahead). So, while I do want the USPS to save money and I do get this might be one way, I would support an option of delivering mail to PO boxes every Saturday and offering low-income people who get paid via check a substantial discount on box rent (in Janesville, it's fairly reasonable, but other places it can be expensive); if you can get to the post office, you can still get your check. You can still eat this weekend.

You people who say delivery should go to 3 days a week because you are tired of junk mail - what are you thinking? That the junk mail will vaporize 3 days a week? All that's going to happen is that you will get twice as much per delivery day! I personally wouldn't care if there was no mail on Friday or Saturday because it never fails that the kind of mail that tells you something bad that you need to manage ALWAYS comes on those days, after the business week is over and you can't do a thing about it but let it ruin your whole weekend while you stew over it. (You know, the kind where the bank or your insurance company does something wrong and then it's on you to fix it.) I swear those places save up their ugly mail and deliver it to the post office on Thursdays just to not have to hear about it on their phone banks for a while - then when you call Monday you get the recorded message that Monday is their peak day and why don't you hang up and call Wednesday - even though the letter said that if you don't call by Monday you're hosed...

I don’t think that we’re going backwards at all. Once upon a time, the USPS was indispensable and a very important part of our lives. It was almost the only way that people and businesses communicated with each other. Then came the electronic age with fax machines, e-mails, texting, Facebook, Twitter and more (and many will say that these have “improved” our lives) that are making the USPS less relevant. The phone company has long since cut down on operators that once connected our calls and gave us information through 411 (remember that?). While I wouldn’t want the USPS to go away, we need to allow it to scale down to properly reflect its usage in this age.

woodchuck, Everything is out of whack. If everything was the same and there was just increases over the years we would still have people putting gas in our cars, there would be just the two or three year car loans like we used to have, I would still be able to buy a six year old car for six paychecks. My first pickup I bought at the GMC truck dealer, seven year old vehicle for six paychecks also. You're right things are going backward. These kids today will never know what it is like to fill your car up for $4 or buy a burrito at the convenience store with a beer and get change back from your dollar.

I'm amazed at how many people are enthusiastically in favor of reduced services. To me, it's just another incremental bite out of our quality of life. We're going backwards.

"Professor" wrote: "requiring the post office to fund the next 75 years of retirement obligations IN TEN YEARS. That bill, supported by Paul Ryan (and presumabley his wife, who used to be a lobbyist for UPS), had the SOLE purpose of bankrupting the post office"

The *SOLE* purpose of bankrupting the P.O. "professor"? I think you need to go back to class and learn some facts. Yours are wrong ! BTW, "professor", It is "presumably"

5 day delivery is fine with me. They should have made the move to 5 day delivery 25 years ago

Yes, less garbage I have to throw out. Seems all the USPS delivers is garbage, its almost worse than telemarketers.

I agree with cutting it even further. They could even do 3 day deliveries (m-w-f & tu-th-sat) or something like depending on your area. That would cut the workforce by at least 1/3 and saving all of the fuel costs in addition to that. Or even a 3 day delivery schedule (m-w-f) for everyone with only the branches being open 5 days a week for those who absolutely need to get that letter/package out.

But of course they are Union so they would rather see it fail in order to save face with their members.

Yes I do support this change. It is the direct result caused by cost vs. revenue. The demand of the postal worker's union to fire the Postmaster was loosely associated. The causes are listed in it's budget and the USPS had to adjust. Even if that is unfortunate to workers in the USPS, as it is evidently a necessity.

the USPS does not cost taxpayers a dime. It is funded through the sale of postage stamps. If everyone is so anxious to get rid of the post office, I think the USPS should shut down for a month and let everyone use FedEx and UPS for delivery of bills, Christmas cards, Birthday cards, prescriptions, etc. Small business will be hurt if this happens as will the greeting card industry and many others that I don't even know about. Even FedEx and UPS would complain as they use the USPS as the final delivery service for small packages that they cannot deliver at a profit. Go for it! Everyone will be begging for the Post Office to return when your Christmas Card list cost you $5 per card to be delivered within 10 days - not the next day.

if you think about it today you always have to pay more for less service so what else is new do you really thing it will lower the cost of mail i dont think it will do not thing so lets eat it and see what else we will loose in this go a roud what could be next no glass cleaned at gas stations ha ha that was time before have fun with no mail man to see on sat. is that 3 days off work now???

FINALLY! I'd like to see the post office cut all the way down to Mon-Wed-Fri home delivery but leave the offices open for people to mail items. Think of all the gas that will be saved, after all taxpayers like us are the ones paying for that gas.

Now let's get rid of the penny & nickel since they cost more to make than what they are worth. How about a government run program to get your name off junk mail instead? A national "do not mail" list would be great!

I would support them going down to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine or even just a Tuesday and Thursday schedule. Our postman fills our little box out front with unwanted pizza coupons and credit card offers. I have to then move them directly out back to the trash/recycle bin. Nobody actually writes anymore. The postman just delivers a wad of trash. They could cut back further delivery days and save even more money, I would think.

The problems at the USPS have nothing to do with Saturday delivery. It has to do with the draconian law passed by the R's requiring the post office to fund the next 75 years of retirement obligations IN TEN YEARS. That bill, supported by Paul Ryan (and presumabley his wife, who used to be a lobbyist for UPS), had the SOLE purpose of bankrupting the post office, so private industry--namely UPS and Fedex can move in.

We have survived not getting mail on Sunday's so we'll survive not getting mail on Saturday's. Besides, with a rare exception all I get in the mail now days is junk (sorry advertisers) and it goes straight to the trash can.

I personally don't have a problem with a company trying to save money. Ending weekend delivery sounds like a sound business plan to me.

It would be a smart move

Since 99.999% of all my mail is junk, I think getting rid of all mail would be a good thing for the environment. Unfortunately it would be unconstitutional. Then again, when has that stood in the way of our government?
I'm just sayin'...

I still pay all my utility bills (and Gazette subscription) by snail mail but I don't mind the end of Saturday mail deliveries. I like to have reading material, including magazines, in the "Throne Room". Even though a lot of it is available online, I'd rather not have to regularly sanitize computer hardware.

Imagine how icky Windows8 touchscreens would get in public restrooms! ☺

I do not support eliminating Saturday deliveries. Instead I support privatization of the postal service. In my opinion such a move would allow the new organization to find and implement more efficiencies. FedEx,UPS, and others are doing very well financially and have shown the flexibility to adapt to huge seaonal volume fluctuations. One of these or a company like them could do the same with mail.

Sure why not...they deserve a two day weekend too. I'm in no hurry to recei
ve my bills.

Long overdue.