WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service said Monday it wants to end Saturday mail delivery by early next year as part of a wide-ranging plan to slash jobs, save billions of dollars and cope with the effect of declining mail volume in the Internet age.
“Given the fact that we’re facing such a huge deficit, we’d like to move as quickly as possible,” Postmaster General John E. Potter told a news conference.
Faced with a projected $238 billion deficit over the next decade, the Postal Service board of governors approved the cuts last week and ordered Potter to submit the proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission today. In addition to cutting one day a week from the delivery schedule, the proposal would eliminate the equivalent of 49,000 full- and part-time jobs.
Officials said the changes would save the Postal Service a forecast $3.3 billion in the first year and about $5.1 billion annually by 2020.
Under the plan, letter carriers would stop street deliveries to U.S. homes and businesses and pickups from blue collection boxes on Saturdays. Mail would continue to be accepted at post offices Saturday to be processed Monday. Express mail and remittance mail services would continue seven days a week.
American mailboxes currently receive an average of four pieces of mail each day, but that is projected to decline to three pieces by 2020.
