Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash
The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has approved the USPS’s recently proposed rate filing. This set of mailing services price changes will take effect on July 9, 2023.
This increase is in line with the USPS’s implementation of twice-yearly rate increases on Market Dominant products that began in January of this year. Market Dominant products include First-Class Mail, USPS Marketing Mail, Periodicals, Package Services, and Special Services.
This increases will raise mail prices as listed below (represented as an average increase within each class). Most of these final percentage increases are just slightly lower than originally proposed.
First-Class Mail: 5.368 percent
USPS Marketing Mail: 5.378 percent
Periodicals: 8.122 percent
Package Services: 5.379 percent
Special Services: 5.232 percent
In its final order, the PRC noted that there were a “large number of material errors contained in the Postal Service’s initial filing in this proceeding, including errors in the workpapers for all five mail classes.” As a result of these errors, the PRC has directed the USPS to conduct an investigation into the issues and to report back to the Commission by July 31, 2023, with the results of its investigation and “its plan to correct the issues identified in this proceeding in future rate adjustment proceedings.” We’ll keep an eye on whether this will impact the anticipated January 2024 rate increase.