United States Postal Service Making Changes in WA Starting April 1, 2025

Washington State ranks #7 in the country for mail lost by the United States Postal Service (USPS) according to studies.

That's a lot of mail, considering the USPS delivers more than 100 billion pieces of mail per year. According to Google searches, 12,150 Washington residents search for missing mail per 100,000 residents a month, which equates to around one million residents per month searching for missing mail.

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That number is a rough estimate, because the USPS does not publicize how many pieces of mail are actually missing.

Through this research, I discovered the USPS is making significant changes to the way they deliver mail starting next month.

What’s Changing?

For most first-class package services, the rate of delivery will be up to five days and won't be impacted by changes. However, 14 percent will be upgraded to a faster standard, but 11 percent will have a slower standard.

USPS also expects to maintain existing service for standard day ranges for First-Class Mail and USPS Ground Advantage, which means no First-Class Mail will have a standard of more than five days. They will now offer turnaround deliveries for deliveries within the same region as the sender, and provide a 2-3 day turnaround service within a region and within certain local areas.

Basically, they will offer more options so they can bring in more revenue, as the USPS receives zero federal tax dollars to operate.

These changes are part of the Delivering for America plan, which is a 10-year strategy addressing current mail trends and attempts to solve financial challenges (more on that later).

Delivering for America splits into two sections.

"Implementation will be in two phases to facillitate effective operational execution: the first phase will begin April 1 and the second on July 1," USPS says. "The Postal Service projects at least $36 billion in savings over 10 years from transportation, mail processing, and real estate cost reductions."

Why USPS Is Making These Changes

This is all happening because USPS loses a dramatic amount of money every year. In 2024, the USPS lost $9.5 billion, which is $3 billion more than the prior year.
Without the changes, the USPS expects to lose $14.3 billion in 2025, and upwards of $23.3 billion in one year by 2030.

Again, this is largely in part because the USPS receives zero federal or state tax dollars. It relies entirely on the sale of stamps, prodcuts, and services.

So you're probably wondering: If the USPS does not receive federal funding - how are they able to take on such big losses? The answer is debt, and debt forgiveness.

In 2022, Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022. It repealed the pre-funding mandate for reitree health beneifts, required Medicare enrollment for certain retirees, and establishes a Postal Service Health Benefits Program. It also deferred $57 billion in payments to the program which provided immediate financial relief.

Criticism of the Plan

While the USPS wants to make first-class mail quicker and more efficient, and even claims these changes will help rural communities, some are skeptical.

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) issued its advisory opinion in February and claims the plan depends on defective modeling and does not appear to be ready for implementation.

Secondly, the PRC says the USPS relies on overly optimistic financial projections for cost savings, and lastly, the it says the USPS's intent to improve service to rural communities actually has significant negative impacts on those communities.

"The Commission urges the Postal Service to reconsider whether the speculative, meager gains from this proposal outweigh the certain downgrade in service for a significant portion of the nation," the PRC says. "Rural communities will experience disproportionate downgrading of service standards when analyzed by ZIP code pairs."

Honestly, I just want to make sure any mail I'm supposed to receive arrives safely. No matter the changes.