Lawmakers must stand up to the White House and deliver the relief the Postal Service needs — not only to survive abut also to thrive.
The USPS is the quintessential American institution. In fact, it predates the nation by one year: In 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. After nearly 250 years, it is the most trusted brand in the county, according to a study by Morning Consult. That’s unsurprising, perhaps, as “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” prevent postal workers from doing their jobs.
As Americans across the country are following stay-at-home directives, they are relying on the USPS to deliver their prescription drugs, food and other essentials. Tax refunds and stimulus checks arrive through the mail. So do absentee ballots — this year’s presidential election may indeed depend on the Postal Service to facilitate voting by mail. As civil rights leaders caution against efforts that would require voters to pay for postage when mailing in ballots, the USPS has restated its previous policy to deliver every ballot, even those with insufficient postage. Can you imagine UPS or FedEx doing the same?
According to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, rural areas, often heavily Republican, would be particularly hard hit if the Postal Service goes bust. No other service has the capacity to deliver to every address in America, no matter how remote. And in 15 states with the largest rural populations, the USPS directly employs more than 75,000 people. Maine’s 3,356 postal workers, for example, exceed the number of the state’s electricians, fast-food cooks, construction workers, child-care workers and truckers.
Last year, when the main threat to the USPS was privatization, Danny Glover wrote that a diminished Postal Service “would be devastating for customers and employees of all races — but especially African Americans.” Glover, an actor and the son of two postal workers, explained that black employees make up 28.6 percent of the postal workforce and concluded, “We must protect the Postal Service — and support new innovation to meet 21st century needs.”
Today, that innovation is within reach. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) have proposed free Federal Reserve accounts, accessible through local post offices, that would give individual Americans the same higher-than-normal interest rates that big banks enjoy. This builds on postal banking proposals that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others have put forward that could generate as much as $1.1 billion in annual revenue.
