Dale’s Daily Data: Postal Service

I was reading thru the Postal Service’s 10-year plan – basically their plan to survive – and their biggest goal is to eliminate Saturday delivery.  And they want to do it this year.  They say the cost of delivery has continued to climb while revenues decline.  In the first year they claim they can save $3.3 billion and $5.1 billion annually thru 2020. 

Eliminating Saturdays is a long way from how delivery used to be handled. 

From the start carriers were expected to, in the words of the postal service “make deliveries as frequently as the public convenience…..shall require.”  For some cities that meant multiple deliveries a day.  In 1905, letter carriers in Buffalo were making between 2 & 5 deliveries a day Monday thru Saturday.   In Philadelphia they were making 7.  In New York City some businesses were getting 9 deliveries a day. 

The 1922 annual report by the Postmaster General stated “in the smaller cities three deliveries a day is the general rule and in the larger cities three to seven deliveries.”

In 1923 to save money the number of deliveries each day was reduced by one.  Further reductions were made in 1930 and in 1950 in the interest of the economy the Postmaster General ordered postmasters to limit the number of deliveries in residential sections to once a day.

Multiple deliveries to businesses ended in the 1970’s.

Interesting that there are a few towns that receive mail on Sundays rather than Saturday by choice.  Loma Linda, California is one of them because they have a large population of Seventh Day Adventists that observe the sabbath on Saturday.

SOURCE: United States Postal Service