The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is lowering its targets for on-time mail delivery in 2025, as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy stresses the need for the agency to cut costs, because mail volumes dipping each year. 

According to a November 29 filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission, the USPS is planning to reduce its on-time delivery target for first class overnight flats — a term USPS uses to describe large envelopes, newsletters, and magazines — from 95% in 2024 to 80% in 2025, as well as 90% to 80% for three to five day delivery of first-class mail letters, and 91% to 80% for outbound international first-class mail. 

DeJoy defended the proposed changes in a December 5 hearing in front of the U.S. Senate's homeland security committee, and then later at a December 10 hearing with the House oversight committee, detailing how more than three-quarters of all mail routes are losing money, as daily mail deliveries have dipped from 59 billion two decades ago to roughly 12 billion now. The USPS also reported $9.5 billion in net losses for the 2024 fiscal year, up from $6.5 billion in 2023, and $950 million in 2022.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate were critical of DeJoy's plan, pointing to concerns over disproportionate impacts on mail deliveries to rural communities. In the Senate, Republican Josh Hawley vowed to do everything in his power to kill DeJoy's proposal, while House Democrat Jamie Raskin accused the USPS head of making Americans "pay higher prices for worse service." Since he was appointed in 2020, DeJoy has pushed for higher prices on mail, reduced post office hours, and slower first-class delivery times, as part of a larger goal to slash costs across the department. 

DeJoy did not touch on the parcel market, which remains a sore point for USPS, which many think missed the boat on the explosion in home deliveries of online purchases that began in the late 1990s. According to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, USPS had the largest market share of parcel deliveries in the U.S. in 2023, but received only 16% of the revenue, behind UPS (35%) and FedEx (32%), but ahead of latecomer to the market, Amazon Logistics, at 14%.