Busy season
The middle 2 weeks of December often feel like a race against time, and that's particularly true for USPS: the government agency that can trace its roots back to before the very founding of the United States itself.
Indeed, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, USPS is at its busiest. At the time of writing (Sunday morning) its online tracker has already clocked over 9.04 billion items of mail and packages accepted this holiday season, relying on its 230,000-strong fleet of iconic trucks, and 500,000+ postal workers, as its little helpers.
Often known as just the Postal Service, USPS is one of the few agencies explicitly authorized by the US Constitution, holding a monopoly over the carriage of letter-mail, with records of the cost of sending letters dating all the way back to the 1800s.
In 1885, the cost to send a letter was just 2 cents an ounce, today the same privilege — after two price increases this year — will set you back 66 cents, with another price increase slated for 2024. For much of the last century, any hikes have broadly mirrored inflation, however, since 1958, the price of letter-sending has outstripped the wider CPI index.
Stamps of approval
Although we take it for granted today, the very concept of prepayment through stamps is critical. Before prepaid stamps, recipients would foot the delivery bill for the item they were receiving, causing delays, and many simply having to refuse the letter they were set to receive. And so, in 1855, universal prepayment became mandatory for delivery across the country, with the first stamp costing between 5 and 10 cents, depending on the weight and distance.
If you’re someone who sends Christmas or holiday cards, after you’ve selected that perfect card — and attempted to write something that’s not just another happy-holidays-to-you-and-yours type of message — you likely place your trust in a stamp to secure its safe passage. But, how likely is it that your mail makes it on time? About 91%, per USPS standards, with the average first-class mail piece taking 2.5 days to make it to its destination in 2022.
