(Thumbnail image: New York Daily News)
The U.S. Postal Service wants to stop Saturday deliveries to prevent future debt. Congress has not yet approved the change, but how will five-day a week deliveries affect Americans and the system itself?
We look at perspectives from NBC, Fox news, CNN and the Chicago Tribune.
NBC analyzes the source of the postal service's decline in recent years: the Internet. As fewer and fewer Americans rely on handwritten letters and pay bills online, the postal service is struggling to keep up.
"We're talking about the explosion of email, online shopping, online banking, and also a terrible economy. All of that has got the postmaster general saying his agency has to change radically if it's going to survive... In just four years, mail volume has dropped off a cliff from 213 billion pieces delivered in 2006 to fewer than 170 billion projected for 2010, most lost to the Internet."
Fox News projects that only minor changes in price and availability will affect consumers. Without these changes, the postal service's situation could become worse.
"The biggest impact on consumers, if the post office gets its way, would be higher prices for postal services including stamps, fewer post offices around the country, and less frequent home delivery, five days instead of six days... The post off lost nearly $4 billion last year and will lose at least $115 billion over the next 10 years if nothing is done, John."
A writer for CNN urges that even in the 21st Century, the idea of the handwritten letter is a small satisfaction people will not want to give up.
"Logic and ledger sheets would seem to tell us that, in our new digital age, hand-delivery of the mail on Saturdays is not absolutely necessary. But the romance of the mail has never been about logic. The little daily thrill of seeing the mail carrier approaching is not because we know for a fact that he, or she, has something good for us in that bag. These days, he probably doesn't. But he just may. That has always been the lure, every day but Sunday: He just may."
But a Chicago Tribune blog ignores this romanticism. The writer goes so far as to suggest downsizing the delivery system to one-day a week.
"Because this is the 21st Century, less and less urgent material is delivered by traditional postal means. In fact, I'd say most items that arrive in our mailbox on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday could all arrive Friday with no loss of convenience or relevance..."
So do you think the five-day a week delivery could save the postal service, or will consumers just not want to give up their Saturdays?
Writer: Liz Reed
Producer: Newsy Staff
