Community Chat

[bikerbabe]

My post office has a coronavirus outbreak. Closed to disinfect. 😷

[cantdrive55]

I understand what you are saying. I've had a couple of experiences at the post office that rattled me. My small post office has now put tape on the floor at 6 foot  increments and at the window. When I expressed my appreciation, the post master said it wasn't their idea, they had  been instructed to do so.

I am amazed at the lack of social distancing. I'm only going to the Post Office once a week. I scope it out & will wait to go in till it clears out. There is nothing worth risking contracting the corona virus for me, nothing.

My mail & packages are secure there, so, I'm keeping my p o box, this, too, shall pass. 

[SeaMaiden]

Fortune

BY 

NICOLE GOODKIND

March 30, 2020 8:30 AM EST

 
USPS warns it might have to shutter by June as $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package provides no funding

Fifty years ago, a postal worker strike halted mail delivery. The eight-day strike, carried out by 150,000 letter carriers across 30 cities, prompted then-President Richard Nixon to declare an emergency and send in the National Guard to deliver mail. 

“The United States Postal System is a vital element of our entire communications system. The poor depend heavily upon it for medical services and also for government assistance,” “Veterans depend on it for their compensation checks. The elderly depend on it for their Social Security checks.” 

Today, the Postal Service is just as essential: It delivers about 1 million lifesaving medications each year and serves as the only delivery link to Americans living in rural areas. Working with other delivery services like UPS, the agency supports $1.7 trillion in sales and 7.3 million private sector workers year, and this year will prove essential to delivering the 2020 Census to citizens as well as any vote-by-mail initiatives. The USPS is the federal government’s most favorably viewed agency, with an approval rating of 90%.

Yet once again, the USPS is in crisis mode.

With a negative net worth of $65 billion and an additional $140 billion in unfunded liabilities, the USPS originally expected to run out of liquidity by 2021 without intervention. That has accelerated rapidly because of COVID-19. Fewer people and businesses are sending mail because of the outbreak, which could hasten the decline of the Postal Service and close its doors as early as June, officials warned.