After increasing the price of a first-class postage stamp to 68 cents in January, the U.S. Postal Service is planning to increase the cost again in the coming days.
The USPS will bump the cost of a first-class “Forever” stamp to 73 cents on July 14, a 5% jump from the previous price point and 10 cents above the price at the start of 2023. The announcement about the second jump this year was initially made in April.
“The Postal Service is also seeking price adjustments for Special Services products, including Certified Mail and money order fees,” the organization said then. “Notably, there will be no price increase for Post Office Box rental fees, and the Postal Service will apply a price reduction of 10 percent for postal insurance when mailing an item.”
Since January 2020, postage prices have increased 33%. And they’ve jumped just shy of 50% in the past decade.
The Postal Service says the increases have been necessary due to the financial health of the agency. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is in charge of the USPS. The major Trump donor (who was nominated by Trump and cannot be fired by President Biden) has been criticized for his leadership, with the USPS bleeding money during his reign. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024 alone, USPS reported a $2.1 billion net loss, more than double its $1 billion net loss during the same time period in 2023. (The USPS says it plans to break even by 2030.)
“This is not sustainable, and the more prices go up the more volumes go down, until USPS hits a death spiral,” Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank that specializes in productivity and innovation issues, told Fortune earlier this year.
The USPS maintains that even with the increases, postal service rates are among the most affordable in the world.