You may recall the price of stamps had just not too long ago been raised to 39 cents as well, but like me youre not able to fully recall the exact date.
The date was January 8th, 2006,.thats when it went from 37 cents to 39 cents.
listed below are some dates in recent history of postal rate hikes:
May 14, 2007...............41 cents
Jan 8, 2006..................39 cents
JUne 30, 2002..............37 cents
July 1, 2001.................34 cents
Jan 10, 1999.................33 cents
Jan 1, 1995...................32 cents
Feb 3, 1991...................29 cents
April 3, 1988..................25 cents
Feb 17, 1985..................22 cents
Nov 1, 1981....................20 cents
Mar 22, 1981...................18 cents
May 29, 1978..................15 cents
Dec 31, 1975...................13 cents
Sept 14 1975...................10 cents
source: http://www.akdart.com/postrate.html
Youll notice that the most drastic changes in price hikes has occured in the last 10 years. You can thank internet sites like Ebay and Amazon for this.
Thats right, more people are sending letters and packages these days than ever before. The U.S. Postal Service is swamped these days as the whole world has turned into a garage sale courtesy of internet commerce.
Today, you see more freight carriers like Fed-Ex, UPS and DHL out on the road than ever before. There are more 18-wheelers out there too. There has been somewhat of a decrease in shopping traffic at malls, shopping centers, etc. This is not to say people dont shop there as much anymore, but a select market of individuals are absent as they now.
Honestly, I wish the postal service would just raise the price of the stamp to 50 cents. I would much rather them raise it a few cents more and keep it that way, for say, the next 10 years or so, than be expecting another stamp price hike in the next 2 years or so.
We have a choice of different freight carriers for packages to be shipped: Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL. So why cant we have competition within the postal service as well. It could happen, you would have different colored mailboxes in public places. The traditional navy blue for the USPS, and then maybe a bright yellow mailbox for DHL, and brown one for UPS,..red for Fed-Ex?
They would each have their own seperate door-to-door carriers. Which I guess could make out for a very interesting postal route, being that not every home would be targeted for delivery by each carrier. It would be sort of an intermittent route, I suppose. But at least the postal rates would be much lower since there would be the element of competition.
Ways to combat the hike/reduce your usage of stamps.
1. Pay Bills online
2. Use email to send photos, letters, notes, birthday card, etc.
This post has been edited by mireaux7: 19 May 2007 - 10:36 AM