The U.S. Postal Service said that it is $713 million in the red. In its latest financial reports, the USPS reported that mail volume is up but revenue is down for the year, which still has three months to go.
According to the June 15 report, which was just released, the USPS grossed $51.4 billion since the start of its fiscal year last September or $1.1 billion less than expected but $1.2 billion more than last year at the same time.
But while expenses totaled $52.1 billion, $245 million less than planned, they increased by $2.9 billion over last year resulting in year-to-date loss of $713 million. A year ago the USPS was looking at a surplus of $692.4 million.
The figures, it was noted, only reflect the 4.6% rate increase which went into effect in January.
Mail volume for the year so far totaled 162.9 billion pieces, 1 billion pieces higher than had been expected, but 1.9 billion more than last year at this time.
Postal officials did not break down the total volume by category. But they did report that between May 19 and June 15 Standard A (advertising) Mail volume dropped by 1.4% to 6.2 billion pieces, while revenue increased 3.3% to $1.09 billion from $1.05 billion.
In that four-week period, the USPS said first class mail volume increased 2.8% to 7.6 billion pieces from 7.4 billion pieces. Revenue rose 3.4% to $2.6 billion from $2.5 billion.
Priority Mail volume dropped 7.5% to 78.9 million pieces from 85.3 million pieces a year ago. Revenue increased 7.6% to $355.3 million from $330.4 million.
Express mail volume dropped 2.3% to 5.1 million pieces from 5.3 million pieces a year earlier. Revenue remained flat at $74 million.
While the volume of periodicals and publications mail increased by 2.1% to 760,000 million pieces from 744 million pieces, revenue rose by 7.1% to $165 million from $154.1 million.
Despite a 7.9% decline in package volume — to 70.7 million pieces from 76.8 million pieces — revenue increased by 5.7% to $132.8 million from $125.7 million. International mail volume dropped by 16.2% to 72.2 million pieces from 86.2 million pieces, but the revenue from international mail rose by 4.7% to $121.7 million from $116.2 million.
During the same period, the volume of free and reduced rate mail rose by 22.3% to 35.8 million pieces from 29.2 million pieces. Revenue dropped to $77,000 from $110,000.
