A USPS spokesman said the agency is on an unsustainable financial path. USPS to end Saturday mail delivery

The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays in early August in an effort to cut costs for the financially struggling government agency.

As USPS continues to struggle to get its financial house in order, they say they’ll save $2 billion annually — this following its default last summer on an estimated $11 billion debt.


( Also on POLITICO: The end of Saturday magazines)

While mail will delivery will shorten its delivery schedule to the five-day work week, package delivery will continue delivery six days per week, Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe announced at a press conference in Washington.

That’s because while USPS had originally looked at shortening package deliveries, recent growth and forecasts have kept Saturday package delivery alive. There was a 14 percent volume increase in package deliveries since 2010 and USPS projects continued package growth for the next decade, per a USPS release.

Post offices that are currently open on Saturdays will remain open. And mail that is addressed to P.O. Boxes will still be delivered on Saturdays.

It’s just the beginning of more changes. USPS Washington, D.C.-area spokesman George Maffett told POLITICO that USPS will issue a five-year financial plan in early March.

“The Postal Service plans to issue a revised comprehensive five-year financial plan in early March. This plan will identify important cost reduction activities and steps to restore the Postal Service to long-term financial stability,” Maffett said.

As has been widely reported, USPS has struggled as the popularity of e-mail surged. Since 2006, USPS says it has made $15 billion cuts, consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations and shrunk its workforce by 193,000 people — or 28 percent.

Maffett said that the agency must re-evaluate its fiscal path forward in order to survive.

“The Postal Service is currently on an unsustainable financial path and must move forward with actions that are responsible and necessary,” Maffett said.

He added: “We continue to seek legislation to provide the Postal Service with greater flexibility to control costs and generate new revenue.”

Sen Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the subcommittee that overseas USPS, commended the decision and said that it will help “keep the lights on.”

“Despite my disappointment, it’s hard to condemn the Postmaster General for moving aggressively to do what he believes he can and must do to keep the lights on at the Postal Service, which may be only months away from insolvency,” Carper said in a statement.

The announcement also drew praise from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). They wrote in a letter to leaders in both chambers of Congress calling it a “common-sense reform.”

“This common-sense reform would save the Postal Service more than two billion annually… In his recent inaugural address, President Obama spoke about the need to find real solutions to our nation’s problems. Supporting the US Postal Service’s plan to move forward with 5-day mail delivery is one such solution worthy of bipartisan support.”

One politician who wasn’t pleased? Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.), who took a jab at USPS’s famous mantra.

“For generations, the unofficial creed of the United States Postal Worker has proudly set out a standard for steadfastness to duty unequaled in the world. ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ It does not say, ‘Unless it’s Saturday.’ I plan to continue to fight for Saturday mail service,” Hahn said in a statement.

Meanwhile, The American Postal Workers Union opposed the decision. The group’s president Cliff Guffey said that the decisions will “only deepen the agency’s Congressionally-manufactured financial crisis.”

“The APWU condemns the Postal Service’s decision to eliminate Saturday mail delivery, which will only deepen the agency’s congressionally-manufactured financial crisis,” Guffey said in a statement.

He added: “USPS executives cannot save the Postal Service by tearing it apart. These across-the-board cutbacks will weaken the nation’s mail system and put it on a path to privatization.”

J. Justin Wilson — managing director at the Center for Union Facts, a group that opposes unions — praised the decision and criticized APWU’s response.

“Postal unions need to shoulder some of the blame for the Post Office’s financial crisis,” Wilson said in a statement. “Their wage and benefit demands over the past decades have substantially contributed to the Post Office’s insolvency—a fact that union officials are still unwilling to admit.”

The National Association of Letter Carriers blasted the decision and called for Donahoe to step down.

“America’s letter carriers condemn this reckless plan in the strongest terms. We call for the immediate removal of the postmaster general, who has lost the confidence of the men and women who deliver for America every day,” according an NALC statement.