What the Postal Service Reform Act Passing Means for Customers

(KNSI) — The Postal Service Reform Act passed Congress with broad bipartisan support to shore up its long-term sustainability and address delivery delays.

According to Senator Tina Smith, what that means for postal customers is that it will require the Postal Service to continue to deliver mail six days a week “so that we won’t see declines in service going forward.”

Smith explains the law also creates an online dashboard on the Postal Service website allowing postal customers to see “are they meeting the service standards that they’ve committed to?” She says that it is not up and running yet, but it will be available on the Post Office website, and “it’ll help people make sure that they’re getting the standards of delivery that they were expecting. There were individual stories about terrible service right before Christmas in 2020 [and] this would allow you to look all across the country, look at St. Cloud, look at other parts of the state and try to figure out with good information and data, how your service is actually measuring up.”

The law will also eliminate challenges related to employee health care benefits that will save the Postal Service more than $49 billion over the next ten years. Smith explains that piece was needed because “the Post Office was required years ago to prepay health benfit obligations for its retirees out into the future; 25, 75 years, paid today, but it wasn’t going to be owed for 75 years. That put a huge financial burden on the Post Office and was one of the reasons why it had so many financial difficulties. So, by fixing that, we save money and we also put it on a much more secure financial footing, which will mean service will be consistent [and] it won’t cost a lot more for the Post Office.”

The United States Postal Service lost $4.9 billion in 2021, down from a reported $9.2 billion in 2020.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar also supported the bill saying, “Minnesotans rely on the Postal Service to access their prescriptions, receive their paychecks, and remain connected to family and friends. But for too long, the Postal Service has been hampered by burdensome requirements that lead to inefficiencies and delays, despite the best efforts of our postal workers. I was proud to cosponsor this legislation with a bipartisan group of my colleagues to help make the Postal Service more efficient, transparent, and accountable. Now that it has passed the Senate, we are one step closer to ensuring the Postal Service has the resources it needs to continue providing reliable delivery service to communities across Minnesota.”

The PSRA passed in the Senate on a 79-19 vote, getting the Republican support needed beyond the 14 Republican lawmakers who signed on to cosponsor the bill. Florida Senator Rick Scott was a major critic of the PSRA, saying he was concerned about how it would affect Medicare funds and said it doesn’t reduce costs, “it just shifts them.”

The legislation now heads to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

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