Know the Facts

• Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress “To establish post offices and post roads.”
• 1775: The first year of the Postal Service’s operation.
• Postal workers serve 169 million addresses, six days a week
• 44% of the world’s mail volume is handled by the Postal Service.
•  It costs just 73 cents to send a first-class mail across the United States, its territories, and to U.S. military and diplomatic installations worldwide, among the lowest postage prices of any industrialized country.
•  The USPS goes everywhere – private shippers don’t. Many of FedEx and UPS’s parcels are delivered by the USPS. In 2024, 60% of FedEx SurePost packages were delivered by the post office while UPS Mail Innovations gave nearly 100% of its lightweight parcels and bulk mail, such as annual reports, to the Postal Service for the last mile.
• The Postal Service is the largest civilian employer of U.S. military veterans and disabled veterans. It employs about 73,000 veterans. Nearly one-third are disabled veterans.
• 27% of USPS employees are African American. Minorities comprise 39%. Women comprise 38%. [source] For comparison, the U.S. labor force at large is 12% African American [DOL]
• 72% of people hold a favorable opinion of the USPS, making it the second most popular federal agency, behind the National Park Service [source]

However

• The current Trump administration has expressed its desire to takeover direct control of the USPS and privatize it.
• Such a move would put at risk the universal service requirement to provide the same affordable postal service to everyone in the country. It would jeopardize good, union jobs, and it would raise postage costs – especially in underserved areas, such as rural and low-income urban areas.