The United States Postal Service proposed raising the price of a first-class stamp by 4 cents to 82 cents, the agency said on April 9 as seeks to improve its dire financial situation.

The proposed 4.8% price hike will be reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an oversight body, and if approved, would go into effect July 12. It would be the eighth stamp price hike since 2021, an increase of about 34% over that time, according to the PRC.

The proposal comes soon after the agency said it plans to implement later this month an 8% price increase on package shipping to offset rising transportation costs. 

The recent price increases on mail and shipping reflect the postal service’s efforts to get out of a long-term and increasingly urgent financial crisis brought on by declining mail volumes, exorbitant operating costs and burdensome pension requirements. Postmaster General David Steiner has said that the agency is at risk of running out of cash as early as next year.

Earlier on April 9, the PRC passed a separate waiver that would lift certain pension funding requirements for the agency, potentially freeing up to $15 billion through 2030 to provide the postal service “some breathing room and flexibility to repurpose revenues that it would have used for retiree benefits to execute its contingency plans to avoid running out of cash,” the PRC said in a statement.