The price increases haven't been quite as dramatic as those at the gas pump where one suspects they'll soon devise a method of adding another penny or two per gallon in the middle of a fill-up.
Rather, for customers of the U.S. Postal Service it's more akin to a death by a thousand cuts. The first-class stamp that cost a mere quarter in 1988, has gone up eight times since and Monday will sell for 42 cents, up a penny from the last increase in May 2007. It's the fifth increase since 2001, during which the cost of a stamp has increased 24 percent.
It's gotten to the point that buying those "Forever" stamps — which allow one to mail tomorrow's letters at today's prices — are becoming as sensible an investment as long-term Treasury bonds.
Unfortunately, according to Charles Guy, former director of strategic planning for the U.S. Postal Service and now a member of an Arlington, Va.-based think tank, the Lexington Institute, "Monday's stamp price increase may provide a temporary bump in revenues, but it's not enough to solve the Postal Service's long-term financial problems." Many of those problems involve labor costs, including the need to raise $50 billion to fund the agency's pension obligations over the next 10 years.
Yet, Guy says, to date "Congress has ... resisted USPS management's efforts to control labor costs by consolidating facilities or outsourcing tasks." Better to just keeping raising stamp prices.
For now there's always e-mail. Let's hope Congress and the Postal Service don't come up with a method of charging us for our use of cyberspace.
