Let's Get to The Truth: Myths and Facts about Postal Privatization

April 22, 2025

Share this article

No matter how you voted in last year's election, no one voted to destroy the Postal Service. But the new administration plans to break up the Postal Service and sell it off to private corporations. Here's what you need to know and what you can do to help save the Postal Service.

MYTH: The USPS loses billions of dollars each year in taxpayers’ money.

FACT: The Postal Service is self-funded and relies on revenue generated from the sale of stamps, products, and services to pay for its operations.

MYTH: The USPS is obsolete because letter mail volumes have steadily declined in the digital age.

FACT: The Postal Service is 250 years old and has always adapted to new technology and mail-mix. While letter mail is down, package volumes are up. Additionally, the Postal Reform Act of 2022 allows the Postal Service to offer new services to local government. These and other expanded services like postal banking, could underpin USPS finances for generations to come.

MYTH: The USPS isn’t profitable, so it should be run like a business.

FACT: The Postal Service is not a business; it is enshrined in the constitution and has a congressionally-mandated obligation to serve the people by delivering to all 169 million addresses, urban or rural, six days a week.

MYTH: If the mail was run by private companies, the universal service obligation would still exist and the Postal Service would deliver to every address.

FACT: Delivery would be driven by profit margins, and private companies will only go to where they can make a profit. Sections of our population could lose mail service entirely. Prices would rise according to whatever the company demands for their own profit.

MYTH: Moving the USPS under the Commerce Department would mean it is still a public agency, and not subject to privatization.

FACT: Moving the USPS under the Commerce Department would be a step backwards, giving power back to the Executive Branch and removing the independent governance that allows us to serve America free from political interference. It could also affect labor union contracts, vote-by-mail initiatives, and much more. Trump-appointed Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick would be in charge. He has already expressed interest in privatizing the Postal Service. This administration intends to break up and sell off the profitable portions of the Postal Service to billionaires and USPS competitors.

Understanding The Facts: Our public Postal Service

Support and protect your public Postal Service. Sign our petition at usmailnotforsale.org/petition.

FACT: The Post Office is enshrined in the US Constitution and created by an act of co Congress. The public Postal Service is part of the fundamental infrastructure of our great nation binding us together.

FACT: By law, the USPS is self funded. It operates through the sale of postage and and postal services alone, without tax dollars.

FACT: The Post Office will celebrate its 250th anniversary in July. Let’s work together to bring another 250 years of strong, public postal services for every American!

FACT: The USPS delivers to every address in the country—169 million addresses and and 318 million pieces of mail each day—no matter who we are or where we live. In contrast, private delivery companies will only go where they can make a profit.

FACT: If the Administration’s plans to sell the USPS to corporations for private a goes through, it will result in higher costs, reduced delivery days, and the end of universal delivery to every address in the country.

FACT: The USPS is the low-cost anchor of the giant mail and package industry. bla The industry employs more than seven million people and generates more than $1.2 trillion in economic activity. At a time of booming e-commerce, the public Postal Service is as necessary as ever. 

FACT: The United States Postal Service is consistently ranked among the most favorable favorable and most trusted federal agencies.

FACT: Postal privatization wouldn’t just be the end of reliable mail delivery, it woould would destroy over 600,000 good union jobs. The USPS is also the country’s largest civilian employer of veterans. Good jobs build good communities.