I was actually surprised that it went down in April; 49 cents was supposed to be “temporary,” but we’ve all seen these “temporary” things that somehow became permanent.
I didn’t even know it went down, but I just buy a few forever stamps and only use about 3 a year outside Christmas cards. Still a great deal considering what’s involved to get a letter delivered to your door from thousands of miles away.
Post office is running into the law of diminishing returns, it is amazing to me a stamp is still so cheap. The post office is one of those things that people love to complain about, politicians and ordinary schmoes alike, but it also is a classic case of a business that doesn’t have control of its core business, in many ways like Amtrak. For example, the post office has to maintain offices in every little rural town which is expensive, attempts to have central post offices in rural areas met with fierce opposition, as did attempts that for sparsely populated rural areas to stop house to house delivery., which is expensive as well.
Obviously, too, the post office has run into diminishing first class mail because people are doing so much electronically. Other than some antiquated businesses (or local governments), bill pay can be done electronically via a bank’s website, and many payments these days are done via direct access to bank accounts or credit cards. Even with things like greeting cards, a lot is being done electronically. The percent of mail traffic that is first class has declined tremendously over the past 25 years, and first class subsidizes a lot of other things. Bulk mail especially costs the post office to process and deliver, and things like catalogs and all the other junk mail is a money loser, yet the amount of bulk mail doesn’t seem to have changed much (judging by my mailbox, at the very least:). Might be obvious to raise the cost of bulk mail to cover its costs, but there would be big resistance to that, catalog sellers, junk mail purveyors of all kinds of MSM, those ‘valusaver’ packets I get, magazine publishers, would all complain it would hurt them (that kind of mail is basically a form of business subsidy), but what they do is raise the price of a stamp to help cover the deficits. Problem is as the first rate mail volume decreases the revenue from that decreases as well. They can’t easily raise the price of shipping packages, where in many ways they are very competitive with Fedex and UPS, because that likely would cause people to ship through the competition…so the lowly stamp becomes the kingpin of new revenue. Kind of like the excise taxes they put on routinely used services like phone, cable and so forth, they are easy to do.
I think that a personal stamp is an amazing thing at the current price levels, being able to mail a letter and have it delivered anywhere in the US is pretty amazing, if you ever looked at the cost of postage outside the US it is pretty amazing it is only what it costs.
I am so glad they have forever stamps. It was such a pain when they would raise the price and I would have to buy 1 or 2 cent stamps to use with any stamps I had left at the old price…
“I think that a personal stamp is an amazing thing at the current price levels, being able to mail a letter and have it delivered anywhere in the US is pretty amazing…”
Can I just say how much I appreciate this comment, this sentiment?
Of all that I find amazing and wonderful about our society, and I am not joking, I love that I can smack a stamp on an envelope, put it in the box, have someone come along dispatched with delivering it to a small mail house, from where it is trucked to a depot,then makes its way all across the country to the exact person to whom I intended. People I do not know (for the most part) and will never meet, having done the bulk of the work along the way.
I am as grateful for the postal system and simple first-class stamps as I am amazed at fingernails and eyeballs on newborns. Crazy.
I bought out the last sheets of Rosa Parks stamps at my local post office some time ago, marked “Forever,” and I am now on my last sheet of stamps. I use them most judiciously.
They ARE forever stamps. No need to buy those extra stamps because you bought some when the cost was lower. Just be thankful you can save the inconvenience (and small costs) of needing to buy supplemental stamps whenever the price goes up.
I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have stuck an extra stamp on an is-it too-heavy envelope instead of bothering to figure how much more to pay, and getting the exact extra postage.
btw- we get mostly junk mail. But letting companies help subsidize my mail is worth the effort of tossing it in the recycle bin.
Yes, add me in, love that for so little, it gets to the destination in a few days (or in my area, usually next day.) Even if you mail, say, 50 letters, it’s not a large amount. I’m always telling my PO folks what a fan I am.
Musicprnt, what I heard is something about the PO being required to fund a excess in its retirement plan (was that it? Do you know? I was told it was an unusual move by the powers that be.) And thus, that they lost (I think) hundreds of millions from the operating budget.
If bulk mail does not pay for itself, I am all for raising the prices & who cares if those people scream! I have an entire Costco vegetable flat full of junk mail to my parents & DH’s parents, all of which I have requested multiple times online to stop. I’ll be calling this month on all that stuff, I hate the tons of junk mail!
I look forward to a day when I can pull my mailbox out of the ground. Coming soon. Get pretty much nothing of interest ever. Post office box I check once a month or so would work.
I still remember when we were visiting Germany around 1990 and postage for a postcard was about $3 or so, so we opted NOT to mail the postcards but just buy them and send them once we were in a less expensive place. We ended up mailing from them the US, since that was far and away the cheapest place to mail from than anywhere in Europe.
I sent 4 postcards from Italy last fall. None of them go to their destinations! I don’t want mail to disappear, I want it all to be trackable worldwide. The Italian stamps came with a scanable code, which is great, but it also just showed them going nowhere.
@wis75: “They ARE forever stamps. No need to buy those extra stamps because you bought some when the cost was lower.”
I’m not sure if this was in response to what I said about the Rosa Parks stamps, but if it was, know that that particular stamp was one I found beautiful - breathtaking, even - for its depiction of this quiet, graceful, deliberate woman. I would buy all of the Rosa Parks stamps from every surrounding postal station if I thought they were still there.
I had not known of the US Philatelic offerings until late in 2016, too late to order more of the Rosa Parks line, issued in 2013.
EDIT: I re-read what you wrote, wis, and I’m truly not sure to whom you made your response. Kind of thinking now it wasn’t to me. But, anyway…
@lookingforward:
Like many public entitities, the post office deferred making payments into the employee pension plans over the years, and what happened was they had a big deficit and either the courts or the federal pension administration forced them into putting the money into the fund, and that caused the deficit if I remember correctly.
A postage stamp is one of the best bargains around, even at 49 cents.
The forever comment was about the thread title, not certain stamps.
I wish I could get some of my favorites all of the time. btw- here in Tampa they had a Diwali stamp in December, many Indians in our part of town (the local Walmart even has Diwali greeting cards). The clerk said it came out too late for the holiday so they had them in the Christmas season- I bought some to use with relatives next fall. There have been times I have bought minimal stamps because the selection was not at all what I like. Meant another trip to the local branch a whopping less than 2 miles away…
I just saved $80 a year on my auto insurance by going paperless, and no I didn’t switch to GEICO. 
@wis75: I have not seen that stamp, but will go ask for it. It is lovely. It is both a commemorative stamp and a Forever stamp, so perhaps my local postal station has kept a supply.
On the subject of the commemorative stamp:
“The Postal Service receives approximately 40,000 suggestions for stamp ideas annually from the public. Stamp subjects are reviewed by the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee. Of that, approximately 25 topic suggestions for commemorative stamps are selected by the Committee for the Postmaster General’s approval.”
And then, more to the subject of this thread,
“The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.”
Look for a Diwali stamp next fall- a seasonal stamp (unless they still have leftovers from the past season). The one I saw had an orangey oil lamp. So nice that stamps reflect the diversity of the country- in so many ways (interests, affiliations…). Great they do not feel the need to just do one or two works-for-everyone stamps.
People still collect stamps! 
I always ask the post office clerk for the more unusual stamps. I have a few that have not so great designs on them… Those were reserved for Comcast bills.