The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has slowed down its delivery starting on Friday. The new changes come from a blueprint by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to cut costs.
“The service standard changes are part of our balanced and comprehensive Delivering for America Strategic Plan and will improve service reliability and predictability for customers and enhance the efficiency of the Postal Service network,” USPS said in a statement. “The service standard changes that we have determined to implement are a necessary step towards achieving our goal of consistently meeting 95 percent service performance.”
Experts have warned that the new measure could disadvantage the disabled, rural and elderly customers the most.
Forty Congress members have also signed a bipartisan letter questioning the USPS’s decision. “We believe that at a minimum, these consolidations should be paused until further information about the justification and impact is made public,” the statement reads.
In March, DeJoy unveiled his 10-year plan to save $160 billion of the projected deficit.
DeJoy was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020. The postmaster, who didn’t have any postal service experience prior to this job, was one of Trump’s big donors, who gave over $360,000 to Trump’s re-election campaign last year alone.
More recently, the USPS sealed a five-year contract that cost $120 million with XPO Logistics, a company that has financial ties to his family business.
Some Democrats claimed that DeJoy deliberately delayed the mail-in ballot processing during the presidential election last year to help Trump.
