Did You Know? 10 things you may not know about the US Postal Service

As we've heard internal reports of U.S. Postal Service workers struggling to get the local mail out on time, the Southeast Missourian has been looking more into USPS' general operations. Here are 10 things you may not know about the Postal Service:

• USPS delivered 127.3 billion pieces of mail in 2022. It was expected to deliver 120.9 billion in 2023. It reached its peak in 2006 with approximately 213 billion pieces delivered. The number of pieces delivered has dropped every year since.
• Marketing mail is the most delivered type of mail by volume. USPS delivered 67.1 billion marketing pieces in 2022, followed by 48.9 billion pieces of first-class mail. Periodicals accounted for just 3.4 billion, or less than 3% of the total.
• Despite marketing pieces accounting for 52% of the number of pieces delivered by category type, marketing mail only accounted for 20% of the revenue. The largest revenue category for the post office comes from shipping and packaging, at about 40% of USPS' revenue, due to packages' weight, which affects the cost to ship.
• USPS took in $78.8 billion in revenue in 2022.
• While USPS announced an expected operational shortfall in 2022 and 2023, USPS ended 2022 with $23.6 billion cash in hand and $10 billion in debt.
• USPS is considered an extension of the U.S. executive branch, but it does not collect tax dollars for operations. It uses its fees to pay for its services. However, certain decisions about how USPS funds its employees' pensions fall under purview of the U.S. government.
• USPS entered into a contract with Amazon to deliver packages Sundays in 2013. The agreement, in theory, allows for Amazon Prime customers to order an item on a Friday and have it delivered by Sunday. The agreement includes delivery to Amazon customers who are not Prime customers as well. The terms of the agreement are sealed. Business Insider reported in 2020 that Amazon generated $3.9 billion a year for USPS.
• USPS delivers approximately 44% of the world's mail volume.
• USPS employs approximately 516,715 "career employees".
• The creation of USPS is embedded into the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 empowers Congress "To establish post offices and post roads." As time went on, the U.S. government was given the authority to establish laws regulating what types of materials could be mailed and establishing criminal abuses of the postal system.