America's Postal Service Will Run Out of Cash Within 12 Months, Postmaster General Warns Congress

One of America's oldest and most trusted institutions is on the verge of collapse,  and most people have no idea. The US Postal Service, which has served Americans for 250 years, could stop delivering mail within 12 months.

Postmaster General David Steiner delivered a stark warning to Congress this week: "At our current rate, we'll be out of cash in less than 12 months. So in about a year from now, the postal service would be unable to deliver the mail." That's not a distant policy problem,  that's your prescription drugs, your benefit checks, your vote-by-mail ballot, and your small business deliveries grinding to a halt.

The numbers are staggering. USPS lost $9 billion last fiscal year, $9.5 billion in 2024, and another $1.3 billion in just the first quarter of 2026. Unlike other federal agencies, the Postal Service receives no tax dollars for daily operations,  it relies entirely on what it earns. And as emails replaced letters and online payments replaced mailed checks, that revenue has steadily dried up.

The fix, according to Steiner, is straightforward: allow USPS to borrow more money and raise postage prices. He argues that bumping a first-class stamp from 75 cents to around 95 cents "would largely solve our controllable loss," a modest price for a service that reaches every American address at a uniform rate. US postage is already among the cheapest of any industrialized nation.

But this isn't just about the price of a stamp. At the heart of the crisis is a legal obligation to serve everyone,  including rural and remote communities that private carriers like FedEx or UPS would never prioritize. As Steiner bluntly put it: "If you want the same number of delivery days and post offices, we can do that. But someone has to pay for it."

There's also a political dimension. President Trump has floated placing USPS under Commerce Department control, widely seen as a step toward privatization that could fundamentally change who gets served and at what cost.

Both parties agree this can't be ignored. As one lawmaker put it plainly: "We cannot let the United States Postal Service die." The question is whether Congress will act before time runs out.

Link: CNN