To the editor:
Now that the Christmas season is over, I think it is a good time to thank all the 637,982 employees who work for us at the United States Postal Service.
President Trump can complain all he wants about the fact that the Postal Service is projected to lose $6.9 billion this year and threaten to privatize this vital service that benefits all Americans. The fact is that these hard-working postal workers deliver 112 billion pieces of mail annually to 320 million people at 168 million addresses six days a week, 52 weeks a year. This equates to costing us only $0.07 per day of our tax money (in addition to the cost of the mailing). To me this is incredible. The fact that the postal service can generate almost $80 billion of revenue and net only a loss of $6.9 billion given all the constraints that they face is financially and operationally terrific. I am sure many of Mr. Trump’s other former businesses—including but not limited to casinos, water, football teams, a university, an airline, steaks, etc., etc., etc.—did a lot worse.
Let us not forget that the U.S. Postal Service has tremendous competition. Over the past decades, companies like FedEx, UPS, DHL, and many other delivery companies have focused on taking away the more lucrative aspects of delivering packaged mail.
In addition to benefitting from this wonderful day-to-day service, we should appreciate each of the family members of these more than 637,000 terrific employees for the work that their hard-working family members do for us.
In addition, we should acknowledge and thank the more than 700,000 retired postal workers and their families who benefit from a pension for the years of hard work that they have put in for America.
Our Postal Service is one of this country’s greatest assets and deserves appreciation, as “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
David W. Unger
Great Barrington
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