Claim: The U.S. economic downturn due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 was forcing the United States Postal Service to close. OPPORTUNITY-FILLED With more than … The organization plans to reduce its debt level by an additional $2.2 billion as existing debt matures in February and May 2019. USPS has paid down the debt in recent years, but has never fully paid off the loan. For nearly two-and-a-half centuries, it has continued to adapt and transform to meet the evolving needs of its customers. But perhaps the biggest reason for financial troubles is the USPS' retirement funding. SHARE . The Postal Service has a 243-year history of creating new technologies for the American people — enabling faster, more ef˜cient communication and safer, more secure delivery of correspondence and merchandise. United States Government Accountability Office. The Postal Service’s $15 billion debt is a direct result of the mandate that it must pay about $5.6 billion a year for 10 years to prefund the retiree healthcare plan. According to USPS, its peak number of full-time postal workers was 797,795 in 1999. USPS has been around for more than 200 years, but says it is close to being insolvent. As planned, the Postal Service reduced its debt level during 2019 by $2.2 billion, finishing the year with $11.0 billion in debt outstanding. Indeed, Postal Service inspector general David Williams wrote a letter to the Senate earlier this year recommending just that -- eliminating the annual payments and letting the $44 billion fund grow with interest. The U.S. Post Office owes $100 Billion in benefits to its workers/retirees but doesn’t have the money. The immediate consequence of such insolvency of the agency would be that the largest postal system in the world, which moves 150 billion pieces of mail every year, would be dead in the water. Postal Facts 2020 provides the public with information about the Postal Service. Operating expenses for the year were $74.4 billion, an increase of $2.2 billion, or 3.1 percent, compared to the prior year. EMAIL. The Postal Service, which employs 650,000 people, is asking for $75 billion in aid from the government, and, according to The New York Times, another $14 billion to pay off debt related to a retirement benefits program ― a whopping $89 billion total. So, yes, the USPS ha piled up billions of dollars in “debt” ON PAPER since 2006. Despite the Postal Service's debt, its retiree benefit coffers are beyond full. Since the payments are legal obligations, USPS takes a charge for the full amount of the payment, even though no money actually changes hands. The 10-K for the previous year showed a balance of $13.2 billion. TWEET. The Postal Service has racked up $160.9 billion in debt from what’s owed prepaying retiree benefits. That accounts for virtually all of USPS debt since 2006, when USPS was debt free. In 2006, Congress forced the Postal Service to prepay health benefits and pensions for its retirees. The post office handles more than 140 billion pieces of mail a year, according to the GAO. According to USPS's data, its workforce declined during this period from approximately 796,000 to 618,000 employees, or by about 22 percent. USPS’s total unfunded liabilities and debt ($143 billion at the end of fiscal year 2018) have grown to double its annual revenue.” As CNN reports, the USPS told Congress it would be … USPS’s total unfunded liabilities and debt were $143 billion at the end of the fiscal year 2018, an amount double its annual revenue. That's about how long the postal service has faced declining mail volumes and a growing mountain of debt. The facts in this publication may be reproduced for the purpose of stating the fact itself, and in a business, informational, academic context and the like, and in the body of text discussing factual subject matter relevant to the fact being presented. The U.S. The U.S. This requirement has deprived the Postal Service of the opportunity to invest in capital projects and research and development. Claim: The United States Postal Service (USPS) is losing money due to a 2006 law mandating it fund its pensions 75 years in advance. SHARE. Postal Service (USPS) says it has reached an agreement on the terms of a $10 billion loan from the Department of Treasury, “should the need arise.” At the same time, the GAO reported that “the USPS’s debt and unfunded liabilities have become a large and growing burden – increasing from 83 percent of USPS’s revenues in fiscal 2007 to 148 percent of revenues in fiscal year 2013.” In other words, the USPS spent and owed (unfunded) 48 percent more than the total it took in from revenue in 2013. Since then, it has lost $77.8 billion. Congress abolished the tottering old Post Office Department in 1971 and replaced it with the USPS. Public debt already is $24 trillion, so the public is not terribly harmed by assuming this additional debt — especially if it helps stave off the collapse of the USPS. "The Postal Service's $15 billion debt is a direct result of the mandate," the Inspector General wrote in 2015. So not only did the FFB NOT loan the USPS $11 billion last year, the USPS actually REDUCED its debt by $2.2 billion. Your claim that “The FFB loaned the USPS 11 billion in 2019” is not true. SHARE. Duration: 01:59 8/21/2020. By 2019, it was 496,934, a reduction of over 300,000 full-time employees. In 2006, a Republican-dominated Congress passed a bill, signed by George W. Bush, that required the USPS to pre-fund, over a ten-year period, pensions for 75 years in advance. From fiscal years 2006 through 2013, the U.S. The Postal Service subsequently reduced its debt by $1.8 billion, finishing the year with $13.2 billion in debt outstanding. The USPS has been running deficits for years. (AP Photo) The United States Postal Service (USPS) lost $5.5 billion last year. A new analysis explains just how much the USPS benefits from the subsidies it receives from the federal government. But this was not how the Postal Service was supposed to work. The U.S. The USPS 10-K for 2019 says the USPS has a loan balance of $11 billion with the FFB. $143 Billion in Debt & Unfunded Liabilities. (See Figure 1 in report.) “USPS has lost $69 billion over the past 11 fiscal years — including $3.9 billion in fiscal year 2018. Much of the inevitable upcoming addition debt is from a demographic spike in retirees and their promised benefits. Here's why the US Postal Service has been in massive debt for years. Excluding losses so far this year, the USPS last had a surplus in 2006. Load Error Postal Service (USPS) decreased the size of its workforce and the number of employee work hours through retirements, attrition, and initiatives to streamline its operations. The only silver lining is that the loss was below the red-ink tsunami of $15.9 billion in 2012. An “independent establishment of the executive branch,” [1] the Postal Service was designed to be self-sustaining. 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