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Home delivery may become a mail service of the past

Laurel Contributor
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How do you solve a problem like the struggling United States Postal Service? Mail delivery service to cluster boxes instead of door-to-door drop-offs may be the government’s solution, CNN reports.

The centralized approach would save USPS more money than ending service on Saturdays.  While each urban stop generally costs USPS $353, cluster box delivery would cost only $160 per stop, according to the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General. That would save over $4.5 billion a year, according to government reports.

This could be an answer to Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe’s plead back in February that USPS “needs urgent reform to its business model” in order to survive.

California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the House Republican leading legislative effort to do away with door-to-door delivery. According to Issa, “A balanced approach to saving the Postal Service means allowing USPS to adapt to America’s changing use of mail.”

But not everyone is a fan of the new approach.

Jim Sauber, chief of staff for a labor union called the National Association of Letter Carriers, considers the solution “madness.”

“The idea that somebody is going to walk down to their mailbox in Buffalo, New York, in the winter snow to get their mail is just crazy,” Sauber said.

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