With complaints about postal deliveries to rural towns reaching a cacophony in recent years due to cuts to USPS infrastructure, the National Newspaper Association (NNA) has leant its support to Senator Tom Carper’s Improving Postal Operations, Service & Transparency (iPost) Act.

Service to isolated towns and rural areas has declined in quality as the USPS has rationalized its infrastructure due to plummeting mail volumes brought about by the advent of email. The NNA has waded into the debate as its members are now getting complaints that their newspapers aren’t being delivered on time, even if First Class and Priority Mail.

The iPost Act would ensure that rural zip codes are monitored for performance standards. The Act would also impose a five year moratorium on the closure of more processing plants while an investigation takes place to see whether previous cuts to the network have cut too deep.

As with many national postal services the USPS is making huge losses as it tried to readjust to the new world where written communication supplants ‘snail mail’. It makes losses in the region of USD $6bn annually and has gone through a rationalization process to tackle the losses. Inevitably some areas have lost out, and in this case rural areas are getting the brunt of the changes.