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By Liz Alper
April 12, 2016 (San Diego's East County) - The good news: the price of your postage stamps has gone down. The bad news: there may be steeper rate hikes in the future, according to CNN.
The United States Postal Service is not happy that the price of stamps decreased from 49 cents to 47 cents on Sunday, because it will cost them $2 billion dollars this year, according to the Postal Regulatory Commission. Less revenue makes it more difficult for the Postal Service to provide the services that Americans require from it, such as mailing letters and packages at a time when recent budget cuts by Congress forced closure of some post offices and removal of public mailboxes in many communities.
To counteract the rate change, the USPS filed a petition on Thursday for a new rate-setting process that could allow it to charge steeper rate hikes in the future. The post office has also reached its borrowing limit.
"Given our precarious financial condition and ongoing business needs, the price reduction...exacerbates our losses," said Postmaster General Megan Brennan in a statement Thursday. "This unfortunate decision heightens the importance of the review of our ratemaking system."
The last time there was a decrease in the price of postage stamps was in July of 1919, when the price went from three cents to two cents. This is only the third price decrease going back to the Civil War.
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