Tue, April 11, 2023 at 9:16 AM
The U.S. Postal Service is raising mail prices for most users. The new rates, which cover other mail items including periodicals and advertising mailers, are poised to take effect July 9 unless overruled by the postal regulator.
The 5.4 percent increase across all first-class mail products is the agency's fourth rate hike in two years. It also brings first-class mail costs up 32 percent since 2019, when a stamp ran 50 cents.
The price increases are part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's turnaround of the mail agency, which was facing hundreds of billions of dollars in unpayable liabilities when he took office in June 2020.
A year later, the Postal Service said it would increase rates twice annually, making up for what it said were years' worth of artificially low rates. Sending mail in the United States is still cheaper than in nearly any country in the developed world.
"As operating expenses fueled by inflation continue to rise and the effects of a previously defective pricing model are still being felt, these price adjustments are needed to provide the Postal Service with much needed revenue to achieve the financial stability," the agency wrote in a news release.
Postal finance officials also have blamed persistent inflation for increasing the agency's costs and depressing consumer spending.
All I know is that it is getting to the point where it cost about $6.50 or more to mail an 8 to 13 oz package from here to west of the Pecos. Not so great for a seller trying to keep costs down 
for the past two years in October the USPS has put it place a "seasonal rate" or some "new-speak" term like that to increase the rates until January... and the biggest joke of is that the "seasonal rate" ends on say 01/24/23 ... then on 01/26/23 the new rate increase begins for the year! 
.... What a joke. 
