Emergency Help For The USPS

Alexander Marks (aomarks) • Public domain

Please support postal workers and the USPS during the COVID-19 Pandemic. These unsung heroes keep our country and our lives connected. Use this Action Alert to tell Congress to provide emergency funding and debt forgiveness for USPS in the next COVID-19 rescue package, and long-term structural change to preserve affordable and accessible postal services in separate legislation.

The United States Postal Service is one of the few governmental agencies explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution. It has been delivering letters, documents, and packages—including essential medicines— to Americans throughout the country since 1792, with roots predating the American Revolution.

Now the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has caused a collapse of commercial mail, threatening the USPS’s ability to continue serving our nation as soon as early summer.  

Onerous legislative burdens (chiefly, the requirement that USPS pre-pay 50 years of retiree health care obligations) have put the agency on precarious and unsustainable financial footing. The $2.2 trillion rescue bill just enacted provides no emergency appropriations or debt relief, merely a provision for additional borrowing authority of $10 billion. The same bill contains a $500 billion corporate slush fund and the President nullified oversight provisions in his signing statement.

Please tell your Representative and Senators today that Congress must provide emergency funding and debt forgiveness for USPS in the next COVID-19 rescue package, and long-term structural change to preserve affordable and accessible postal services in separate legislation.