The law also requires a fair and equitable apportionment of postal costs among users. Pricing flexibility is but one of eight statutory objectives and one of 14 pricing criteria that the PRC’s regulatory system must consider. I also filed a motion for expedited consideration of my appeal and a statement of the issues to be raised. On December 11, 2018, I filed a petition for review of the PRC’s order with the U.S. The Postal Service has complied with the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.” However, subject to certain limitations, most prominently the price cap, the PAEA gives the Postal Service pricing flexibility within First-Class Mail. In response to this major price increase, the PRC’s Order on Price Adjustments offered just three sentences: “Several commenters take issue with the Postal Service’s proposed pricing adjustments for First-Class Mail products - specifically Stamped Letters prices and the increased price differential between Stamped Letters and Metered Letters. Finally, mail that pays the additional-ounce price comprises only 3.3 percent of total volume, so the decrease in this price will not mitigate the effect of the price increase. Also, most customers buy stamps in quantities of 20 or 100 and pay by debit or credit card, so any notion that prices that are divisible by five are more straightforward or understandable is nonsense. I noted that the public had never had any difficulty understanding postage prices that were not divisible by five. Last October, I filed comments with the PRC opposing this increase. Under the Postal Service’s novel interpretation, the Postal Service says that it intends to maintain five-cent increments in the future. The Postal Service asserts that the five-cent increment will contribute to “simplicity of structure” of the price system, a statutory consideration for setting postage prices. Not only will customers more easily grasp the concept of a five-cent increase, so the argument goes, but they also supposedly will prefer to pay 55 cents instead of 52 cents. However, apparently a two-cent increase would have been too complex for average customers to understand. Rounding up, a two-cent rate hike might have been in order. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.4 percent. The Postal Service’s assertions defy logic and common sense and insult the intelligence of the American public. In its Notice of Market-Dominant Price Adjustment, the Postal Service told the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) that a five-cent increment “should facilitate convenience for retail customers, for whom a straightforward, understandable pricing structure is more important than it is for commercial customers, who do not rely on stamps.” So why is the Postal Service increasing the Forever stamp price by five cents? And how can the Postal Service increase so dramatically the price that the general public and small businesses pay while increasing prices for large mailers by less than inflation? Meanwhile, the one-ounce price for metered letters will increase from 47 cents to 50 cents, prices for presorted letters will increase by only 0.97 percent, and the price for postcards will remain 35 cents. The Postal Service says that this decline in the additional-ounce price will help mitigate the effect of the big price increase on the first ounce.
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The additional-ounce price for letters and large envelopes will drop from 21 cents to 15 cents. The Postal Service is making other changes in First-Class Mail as well. (A history of domestic letter rates is here.) As a percentage, the 10-percent increase is the largest since 1991, and it is about four times the average increase since 2006. The Postal Service is raising the price of a one-ounce, stamped, First-Class letter from 50 cents to 55 cents.Ī five-cent increase in the price of a Forever stamp will be the largest increase in history for the one postage price that most Americans pay. On January 27, 2019, however, postal customers will be discussing a topic far less pleasant. In recent years, January has brought Americans a celebration of a new year, thrilling National Football League playoff games, and a modest postage rate increase that roughly tracked the rate of inflation.Įveryone was talking about this year’s overtime NFL conference championship games.