An unofficial site by Jerry Nelson.
2012: 44 cents -> 45 cents on 22Jan2012
Note: mail that can’t get through a sorting machine costs more.
A flat, flexible business-sized envelope is cheaper than flat, flexible manila envelopes that need bigger sorting machines and they are cheaper than thick, inflexible envelopes of the same size and weight that are UNMACHINABLE.
Letters 1st Class 45¢ + 20¢
1 oz $0.45 Bad envelope penalty 20¢2 ounces $0.65
3 ounces $0.85
3.5 oz $1.05 Heavier? Go to FLATS (next).
Up
2 cents from
$0.42 on 11May09.
Incrementing 20¢, not 17¢, on
17April2011.
Up 1 cent from $0.44 on 22Jan2012.
Add non-machinable penalty ("bad envelope" penalty),
increased to $0.20 May08;
unchanged
for '09, '10, '11, '12 praise the Lord.
Square? Goes though
their machines but they can’t
tell which way? Add
$0.20
Almost square (less than 30%
height-width difference)? Add $0.20.
Too
skinny?
(long
length more than 2.5x short)? Add
$0.20.
Length over 11 ½”
? Go to
“Flats” (next)
Height
over 6 1/8”? Go to
“Flats”.
(A Size 14 envelope is OK;
Size 10 is normal)
Thicker
than ¼”?
Go to “Flats”.
Tired? Sorry. Too bad. Congress gave away its power of oversight and let the Postal Service change rates by itself.
“Flats” (Large 1st Class Envelopes)
1
oz
$0.90
and
add 20 cents
each additional
ounce as of 17April2011; unchanged 2012
2 ounces $1.10
3 ounces $1.30
(fold
it in half and go in a business envelope for 85 cents)
4 ounces $1.50
5 ounces $1.70
6 ounces $1.90
7 ounces $2.10
8 ounces $2.30
9 ounces $2.50
10 ounces $2.70
11 ounces $2.90
12 ounces $3.10
13 ounces $3.30
FLATS:
Your envelope is inflexible, lumpy, not rectangular? Go to “Packages”.
(No cardboard to prevent creased photos, sorry.)
Length over 15” ? Go to “Packages”.
Height over 12”? Go to “Packages”.
Thicker than 1/4"? Go to “Packages”
After 12May08, it went up 3¢
After 11May09, it went up 5¢
After 17Apr11, it incremented 20¢ /oz instead of just 17¢
After 22Jan12, it went up 2¢
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
Padded envelopes not over 3/4" thick, rigid photo mailers, medical samples, small boxes under 1 cubic foot. You may write on your little box, "1st Class Airmail." The official name is "1st Class Package" or "1st Class Mail Parcel" ( not Parcel Post ! ).
2011: No longer available on-line
to the American public.
Pitney-Bowes
can print it for eBay Inc, but you and I have to stand in line at the
Post Office.
But wait! To send small 1st Class Packages ON LINE, go to this unpublicized URL ("Universal Resource Locater" or Web address): https://www.paypal.com/ShipNow (Thank you, JohnD.)
You must be a registered PayPal user (a part of eBay, Inc). You must enter a PayPal user name and password. No coffee breaks! If your session times out, you'll lose the address you were typing and have to log in all over again.
This page normally comes up only if you sold something on eBay and must ship it. There is not supposed to be public access. When public access to this URL is shut down, there will be some excuse. You didn't sell on eBay, we don't know what you are sending. But all our parcels are subject to opening for postal inspection, so tell me again, What are you afraid of? Explain one more time why it is up to eBay, Inc. to say whether we, the American people, have the right to use our own postal system? Keep small parcel access available on line -- the Post Office needs the money as much as eBay. All Americans want a Postal Service.
1 oz $1.952 ounces $1.95
3 ounces $1.95 and add 17 cents each additional ounce
4 ounces $2.12
5 ounces $2.29
6 ounces $2.46
7 ounces $2.63
8 ounces $2.80
9 ounces $2.97
10 ounces $3.14
11 ounces $3.31
12 ounces $3.48
13 ounces $3.65
(After 12May08, it went up 4¢ )
(After 11May09 it went up 5¢ )
(After 17Apr11 the 1st 3 oz were made all the same & only 2¢ less than what 4 oz used 2B)
(After 22 Jan12 it went up 24¢. Wow! No wonder they publicized only the other changes.)
If over 13 oz, try instead Priority Mail flat rate boxes (any weight if you can fit it in).
Too big for the box?
Length
plus girth over 108”? Go to Parcel Post calculator.
No even Priority will take you.
Length plus girth over 130"
Go to UPS like I told you -- Post Office won't
take it.
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
International Airmail
Please make the service easier to use.
1 ounce Canada $0.85. Mexico $0.85. Rest of World (RoW) $1.05.
One
ounce is a
business envelope with 5 sheets of typical Xerox paper, or 1 sheet and
six 4x6" photos. Leave out 1 sheet or 1 photo to be
safe. "3.5" oz means you can't weigh more, but you
pay for 4 oz.
Limits, all countries: value under $400, size under 6 1/8" x
11 1/2" x 1/4" thick
2 oz $1.17
3 oz $1.49
3 1/2 $1.81
MEXICO 1 oz $0.85 +59¢
2 oz $1.44 The next ounce is 59¢ not 32¢? So,
3 oz $2.03 the force of gravity in Mexico is double Canada's?
3 1/2 $2.62
Rest of World 1 oz $1.05
2
3 Check below see of you are in a cheap or costly country group.
31/2
Cheaper Countries, Groups 6-9. Central and South America, Middle East, Africa,
central Asia, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan
1 oz $1.05 + 80¢/oz Unchanged 11Apr2011,
2 oz $1.85 up 22Jan2012 7¢ to start, 2¢ per increment
3 oz $2.65
3 1/2 $3.45
Costly Countries, Groups 3-5. European Union (France, Italy, places with castles and good food) ,
Russia & Turkey, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan,
Australia (host to a key ground station
in a famous spy satellite system),
1 oz $1.05 + 87¢/oz
2 oz $1.92
3 oz $2.79 Unchanged 11Apr2011,
3 1/2 $3.66 up 22Jan2012 7¢ to start, 3¢ per increment
Go to http://postcalc.usps.gov/
and click the large envelope, not the regular-sized one, to
get the higher ounces.
This over 3.5 oz world is a world of 1st Class Mail Int'l LARGE ENVELOPEs and Priority Mail International. Large envelope service still goes up to 64 oz but costs $29.19 (costly countries), so flat rate Priority Mail Int'l at $16.95 is your choice for 2, 3, 4 lbs. Compared to cheaper Priority Flat Rate, this "Large Envelope" offers nothing but a larger envelope: 12 x 15 x 3/4" vs. the tight, thin Priority Envelope at 9 1/2" x 15" (that's the legal size version; same price as classic size in International service).
Logistics: You have to go to the Post Office for Large Envelope service because it's not available online, and you might as well go for your first Priority Int'l mailing too, to get customs forms and help filling them out. You probably couldn't have done your Priority mailing from home and there's no online discount for Priority Int'l anyway.
Not just large but lumpy too? Pay slightly more and go to Packages ("First Class Mail International Packages"). http://postcalc.usps.gov/Why stop at Canada, Mexico, Cheap, and Costly? Why just 9 country groups? UN membership is pushing 200 countries. Bureaucrats, rally round the regulatory windfall. We're not here to make a convenient service in support of this great nation and its people. Let's make sure country #83 doesn't lose money -- we don't have the vision or the leadership to grasp that we are killing the whole service with needless complexity.
We are mediocre bureaucrats. We love it.
Postcard
32¢
Minimum thickness 7 mills; cheap glossy inkjet photo paper is 10 mills, so mail it.
Too big? Mail under letter rates for domestic first class letter.
Increased 2¢ 11May09
Increased 1¢ 17Apr11
Increased 3¢ 22Jan12
International Postcards 98¢
RestOfWorld: $1.05 unchanged 17Apr11; up on 22Jan12 from 98¢
Aerograms
/ Air
Letter Sheets are
discontinued by the postal service of the
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
To
cope with the complexity and to obtain a discount that is about
4%, purchase Priority postage online at:
http://postcalc.usps.gov/
So let's concentrate on flat rate.
In 2010, everything was $4.75 on-line and $4.90 at the counter.
This was too simple.
New tiny "small" and "gift card" sizes make you pay more for less, so we'll ignore them.
The standard 12-1/2" x 9-1/2" size is less on-line than at the counter, so let's use that.
$5.15 flat rate envelope on-line price, domestic, any zone, any weight $4.90 on line.
as long as you can seal the envelope without extra tape, and
as long as it's the standard size, not big (legal) or padded.
SIZES
Stnd 12-1/2" x 9-1/2" $4.90 online
Stnd Now (2011) available in a padded version. Add 20¢ online
Legal New (2011) longer size for legal sheets, 15" x 9-1/2" Add 20¢
The next 2 smaller sizes from 2011save them money, cost the same 4you, to heck with it:
Gift card 10" x 7" $4.75
"Small" 10" x 6" $4.75 (Print your own cards on regular 8.5x11" paper, fold in half.)
$5.35 small flat rate box domestic, any zone, any weight , $5.15 online
as long as you can close the flaps on the seams..
8-5/8" x 5-3/8" x 1-5/8"
$5.00 online in 2011, up from $4.85 in 2010
$5.15 online in 2012, up from $5.00
$11.35
regular/medium flat
rate box any zone, 70 lb max,
$10.85 online
Two medium-size boxes are available:
11"
x 8.5" x 5.5" and
13.625" x
11.875" x 3.375
$10.50
online in 2011,
up from $10.20 in 2010
$10.85 online in 2012, up from
$10.50
$12.20 online, up from $11.95 in 2010.
$12.50 to some locations.
$12.65 online, up from $12.20 in 2011.
23 11/16" x 11 3/4" x 3"
2009 size down from 12" x 12" x 6", and
regular non-APO online price up from
$12.95 2008, $13.50 2009, $13.95 2010, $14.20 2011, $14.65 in 2012.
(Caution: these rates typically change in January -- no, not every change happens in May.)
The flat-rate-size Priority boxes may be used internationally (20 lb maximum; 4 lbs for the small one).
$11.35 small, $26.55
$12.95 small, $32.95 med, $39.95 lg Canada & Mexico
$16.95 small, $47.95 med, $60.95 lg ROW, Rest of World.
SIZE LIMITS IN THE US POSTAL SYSTEM -- Escape from a flat rate box.
Internationally, non-flat rate costs about as much as the large box, and gives you sizes up to 42" long max, and length plus girth of 79" max. Domestically, non-flat-rate lets you escape to sizes up to 108" length plus girth, but there are penalties. You pay for your size in both Priority and Parcel Post service, even if the weight is small. For example, 23 lbs across the country for $28.96 in a Parcel Post carton with only one side over a foot long will jump to $108.23 in a carton with length + girth over 108 inches.
Over 108", Priority stops (airplanes get crowded fast) and Parcel Post is all you have left (trucks have more space). Stay under the 70 lb limit, but other than that, your weight is irrelevant -- you pay the "Oversized Penalty Price" until 130" for length + girth brings your expulsion from the Postal Service altogether. Remember that girth is width + height + width + height. Check prices online.
On-line discount? All these non-standard-box rates are cheaper online, but international flat rate boxes cost the same standing in line vs going online, which is dumb. No online discount is dumb, because the more we customers do all the work, the higher their profit margins -- no bricks, no mortar, no clerks at a counter.
Price increases 22 Jan 2012 for the Priority International Small Flat Rate Box was a staggering $3.70 from $13.25 to $16.95, a 28% increase (Rest of World rate). The price increase 22Jan12 for a Medium Flat Rate Box to Canada and Mexico rose $6.40 from $26.55 to $32.95, a stunning increase of 24%. I saw no mention of these 24% and 28% increases in any USPS announcements, and no Websites making 2011 announcements of upcoming 2012 postage increases that I found ever discovered them either. Transparency is the foundation of democratic government. Thanks, guys.
Jan2010, Jan2011: Prices virtually unchanged (but we fiddled them -- your gov't never sleeps).
TO ORDER PRIORITY BOXES:
If this USPS link stops working, search on MAILING SHIPPING PRIORITY MAIL NO CHARGE like this.
Look for a hit from shop.usps.com.
If you are registered with eBay, try getting some free boxes here and let me know how it goes:
http://ebaysupplies.usps.com/usps
I say there is no weight limit on the small size box.
Pouring the small box full of liquid lead gets you 29 lbs, so I say their weight limit shows an intelligence limit.
You can fill any box with a solid block of aluminum and they'll ship it. (On the large box, leave 1/2" of free space on top.) The medium-sized boxes can be about half-full of solid iron.
The large box needs to be under 1/3 full of iron to pass -- solid iron all the way up to the top of the box would be 225 lbs, lead would be 325 lbs., and don't even think of gold. I have friends to handle the 552 lb avoirdupois weight, but I don't have the $8 million. (552.5 lbs Au, 14.583 Troy oz per lb Av. At $1000/oz Troy, that's $8M.) Meanwhile the price went from $1000/Troy oz. to $1600/Troy oz. I waste my time with these stupid calculations while everyone else makes another $5 million on gold speculation. Where is everybody? Now I've got a little white 552 pound carton and nobody to help me get it out of here.
If it's not a flat rate shipment, you can use your own packaging.
If it's virtually a local shipment, don't use flat-rate.
70 lbs is the limit throughout the USPS, period: Parcel Post, Media Rate, and Priority.
Insurance:
Pre-May 12, 2008: insurance up to $500 was available on-line;
up to $5,000 if you presented the package to a Post Office clerk.
2011: You can buy larger amounts of insurance on line -- $thousands. For some easy-to-steal-and-sell items, you may be forced to get insurance when you fill out the customs form.
Forget "Regional Rate box size A & bigger box size B".
This is the Post Office's 2011 attempt to win back Amazon-style free shipping from UPS, by limiting weights to 15 and 20 lbs and discounting only nearby zones heavily. As long as you ship about 5,000 Priority items or 75,000 pieces overall per year, you qualify. Their Priority prices go down about about 13% in 2011, while the rest of us pay 3% more. Why not give corporations a smaller discount and leave the prices alone for the rest of us?
Packages larger than 1 cubic foot
traveling far (Zones
5 through 8) are priced by size because
such trips use air transportation.
Or rather, you use the same old tables that price everything
by
weight, but you must use an imaginary weight calculated from your
package size as 8.9 lbs per cubic foot.
This works out to LxWxH
in inches
divided by 194. //Rant: These people are trying to
have something both ways at once
(size
or weight? We can't decide!!) Now we have a world of lies:
your box surely does not weight exactly
8.9 lbs/cubic foot. Complexity, lies, and indecision might
be
some people's definition of "bureaucracy". //EndRant
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
because the prices are ridiculous?
2011:
no changes for flat rate.
22Jan2012: Envelope goes up to $18.95, box (70lbs
max) goes to $39.95
To
cope with the complexity and to obtain a discount that is nearly
5%, purchase Express postage online at:
http://postcalc.usps.gov/
Any
Express letter up to
1/2 lb must
use a "Flat Rate Envelope".
a $18.95 flat rate
envelope ($17.75) takes any
weight to any zone.
Since 2011 there's a longer size for legal paper, 15" x 9-1/2", still at the same price (22Jan2012).
Otherwise,
--- for 2 lbs to near-to-far zones, expect $17.40 to
$36.45, (Jan2012, up from $29 in 2010;
--- for 4 lbs, expect $19.85
to
$46.95
Order flat rate envelopes in cardboard or Tyvek here.
To find the page if it has been moved, search on Express mail maximum order like this: sample search. Look for hits on pages with the address "shop.usps.com"
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
OK for: books, DVDs, manuscripts, printed music, big educational charts. Because advertising is forbidden, you must take all magazines out of your box. The books themselves may add only incidental announcements of other books -- as old-fashioned publishers so often did on the otherwise blank end-pages.
After 11May09: Domestic Rates
Up to 1 pound: $2.38
Up to 2 pounds: $2.77
Up to 3 pounds: $3.16
Up to 4 pounds: $3.55
Up to 5 pounds: $3.94
Yes, it goes higher, see http://postcalc.usps.gov/ After you get to 7 pounds for $4.99, the increments are 40¢ per pound, all the way up to $30.19 for the 70 lbs max. At the Post Office, be prepared to open and reseal the box.
To send Media Mail packages ON LINE, go to this unpublicized URL ("Universal Resource Locater" or Web address): https://www.paypal.com/ShipNow (Thank you, JohnD.)
You must be a registered PayPal user (a part of eBay, Inc). You must enter a PayPal user name and password. Normal United States citizens are not allowed to buy Media Mail postage on-line. Corporate customers are privileged to enjoy services that US citizens don't get, even though the USPS is authorized by the Constitution of the United States to serve all its people. Of course, when public access to this URL is shut down, there will be some excuse. But all our parcels are subject to opening for postal inspection, so tell me again what you're afraid I'll mail. Explain one more time why it is up to eBay, Inc. to say whether we, the American people, have the privilege of fully using our own postal system. Keep Media Mail access open -- the Post Office needs the money.
|
Before 12May08: Up to 1 pound: $2.13 |
Up to 1 pound: $2.23 |
Up to 1 pound: $2.38 |
Domestic Money Orders
Up
to $500 -- $1.15
$500.01
to $1000.00 -- $1.55
Domestic
Delivery Confirmation ("Signature Conf")
Sig conf $2.55 for most services, and $2.10 online; First Class Signature Confirmation was $0.80 at the counter ("retail") in 2009,
so we are not going up more than 20%, we are going up more than double.
Certified mail (proof you sent it): $2.95, up from $1.15 in 2009; lots of large price jumps here.
Return Receipt (proof they got it): $2.35 little changed in price from $2.30 in 2009
Registration (postal employees sign a register as the item passes each step in its journey) starts at $10.95, little changed form $10.60. Registration is a prerequisite to adding large amounts of insurance.
Maximum liability has been increased to $25,000 from $5,000 in 2009.
There is no separate "Declared Value Insurance", only "Registration" at some level of "Declared Value".
Express Mail ($100 insurance built in) and Priority are limited to $5,000 -- less for some foreign-country destinations. But not to worry. For $48.50, you can mail a declared value of $25,000 as a registered item. But suppose you hit it big on Antiques Road Show? For your items over $15 million, postage starts at $21,013.50 to persuade the Post Office to carry it -- then take the paperwork around to private insurance companies looking for coverage. The Hope Diamond was mailed this way. Let me know if you need my address.
$ 00.01 to $100: $11.75
$100.01 to $500: $13.50
$4,000.01 to $5,000: $20.50
$24,000.01 to $25K $48.50
For your personal wealth, restrictions to as little as $400/envelope apply to foreign mail – try a wired bank to bank transfer instead. Banks charge $25 or $50 per transaction. You need bank routing numbers, not just the account number for your deposit. The government records everything without a warrant, so this is certainly **not** how 14,700 American set up their off-shore, numbered accounts, 4,450 of them unmasked at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) by a famous whistle-blower, the only one now in jail, of course. (That's funny, how'd you get so many diamonds in your toothpaste?)
First Class Flats padded envelopes and small pkgs
International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
POSTAL ZONES
from my town McLean to ZIP XXXxx
Try http://postcalc.usps.gov/Zonecharts/ (a U.S. Postal Service link) for your own town. You can get a chart like the one below.
This zone chart is handy for Priority boxes that are not flat rate, and essential for Parcel Post if you insist on killing yourself instead of using the on-line calculator at http://postcalc.usps.gov/
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PARCEL
POST
To
send Parcel Post pkgs ON LINE, go to this unpublicized URL
("Universal
Resource Locater" or Web
address): https://www.paypal.com/ShipNow
(Thank
you, JohnD.)This page normally comes up only if you just sold something on eBay and need to ship it. We'll see how long public access lasts. Normal United States citizens are not allowed to buy Parcel Post on-line. Corporate customers are privileged to enjoy services that US citizens don't get, even though the USPS is authorized by the Constitution of the United States to serve all its people. Of course, when public access to this URL is shut down, there will be some excuse. But all our parcels are subject to opening for postal inspection, so tell me again what you're afraid I'll mail, what you're afraid you can't track. Explain one more time why it is up to eBay, Inc. to say whether we, the American people, have the privilege of fully using our own postal system. Keep Parcel Post on-line -- the Post Office needs the money.
I use flat rate Priority for small stuff, and the brown UPS trucks for heavy boxes (over 5 lbs or so).
https://wwwapps.ups.com/ctc/request?loc=en_US
UPS insurance is free up to $100, I paid $5.40 for $600 in 2011, and you have to jump through hoops to collect more than $1000 -- an original receipt for the item, a signed receipt from the guy across the counter when you dropped off the package, perhaps the original complete package saved exactly as it looked at the other end, perhaps a police report . . . ).
For Parcel Post, a local 1 lb shipment 22Jan2012 is $5.20 to $5.70 (depends on zone). Max weight, 70 lbs. At 84" length + girth, your "balloon" penalty weight is 20 lbs even if your real weight is less ($12.33 locally to $26.23 to cross the country). At 108" length + girth, you get the full oversize penalty ($64.42 locally, $108.23 to cross the country). At 130", you are expelled from the Postal System. Go directly to UPS or FedEx Freight, do not pass Go, do not pay the penalty.
To preserve your parcel post sanity, use the USPS rate calculator for "package" or "large package". http://postcalc.usps.gov/
CALCULATING PARCEL POST BY HAND (Don't go there.)
To calculate what it costs to send a box by Parcel Post, our government wants you to get a postal zone table for zones measured from your home town, like the one above, and to use the two tables below and do these steps:
1. Find the BMC city or the ASF city that serves your Zip code.
You can think
of a BMC/ASF as a
big mailing center or an automatic sorting facility.
The largest BMC/ASF is the State of
2. Inter or intra? See if the parcel's destination is or is not in a Zip code also served by your own BMC or ASF. Now you know if this is a intra- or an inter-BMC/ASF shipment.
3. Get the zone. For an inter-BMC/ASF shipment, use the destination Zip and a zone table sheet calculated from your home town like the one above for my town to get the destination zone.
4. Decide whether or not you have a nice little machinable box.
A parcel is
“machinable”
and cheaper if it is not more than 34
inches long, or 17 inches high, or 17 inches thick, or 35 pounds in
weight,
isn’t tied with string, and other obscurities. (For books, or
other printed
matter going Parcel Post, the maximum weight is 25 pounds.)
More at http://pe.usps.com/cpim/ftp/manuals/dmm300/101.pdf
The non-machinable penalty for
inter-BMC/AF rates
is $3.89.
Within an BMC/ASF, the
non-machinable
penalty is $2.87
5. If INTER (between BMCs/ASFs), look up the cost to that zone on the inter-BMC/ASF table below, on either the machinable or non-machinable side.
6. If INTRA, here are the costs to Zone 5 for packages from 1 to 10 lbs:
- $6.83
- 7.59
- 8.33
- 9.00
- 9.63
- 10.19
- 10.73
- 11.21
- 11.66
- 12.08
The
whole table starts on page 20 here:
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/manuals/dmm300/ratesandfees.pdf
For
comparison, the inter
BMC/ASF prices for the
same weights range from $8 to $20.
(These are
non-machinable rates.)
BMC/ASF CITY THAT SERVES YOU
glossary:
BMC = Bulk Mail Center
ASF = Auxiliary Service Facility
For more postal abbreviations, acronyms and a USPS technical term glossary, see http://www.listsbank.com/postal_terms.htmreturn to top
BMCs
(Bulk Mail Centers) in Zip code-order
New Jersey
005, 068-079, 085-098, 100-119, 124-127
Springfield
010-067, 120-123, 128, 129
Philadelphia
080-084, 137-139, 169-199
Pittsburgh
150-168, 260-266, 439-447
Washington DC
200-212, 214-239, 244, 254, 267, 268
Greensboro NC
240-243, 245-249, 270-297, 376
Cincinnati
250-253, 255-259, 400-418, 421, 422, 425-427, 430-433, 437, 438,
448-462, 469-474
Atlanta
298, 300-312, 317-319, 350-352, 354-368, 373, 374, 377-379, 398, 399.
Jacksonville
299, 313-316, 320-342, 344, 346, 347, 349.
Memphis
369-372, 375, 380-397, 700, 701, 703-705, 707, 708, 713, 714, 716, 717,
719-729
St. Louis
420, 423, 424, 475-479, 614-620, 622-631, 633-639
Detroit
434-436, 465-468, 480-497
Chicago
463, 464, 530-532, 534, 535, 537-539, 600-611, 613
Minneapolis/St. Paul
498, 499, 540-551, 553-564, 566
Des Moines
500-516, 520-528, 612, 680, 681, 683-689
Kansas City
640, 641, 644-658, 660-662, 664-679, 739
Denver
690-693, 800-816, 820, 822-831, 856, 857
Dallas
706, 710-712, 718, 733, 747, 750-799, 880, 885
Seattle
835, 838, 970-978, 980-986, 988-994
Los Angeles
889-891, 893, 900-908, 910-928, 930-935
San Francisco
894, 895, 897, 936-966
ASFs
(Auxiliary Service Facilities) in Zip code order
Buffalo
130-136, 140-149
Fargo ND
565, 567, 580-588
Sioux Falls SD
570-577
Billings MT
590-599, 821
Oklahoma City
730, 731, 734-738, 740, 741, 743-746, 748, 749
Salt Lake City
832-834, 836, 837, 840-847, 898, 979
Phoenix
850, 852, 853, 855, 859, 860, 863, 864
Albuquerque
865, 870-875, 877-879, 881-884
Other ASF
Puerto Rico
006-009
Hawaii
967-969
Alaska
995-999
Inter-BMC/ASF PARCEL POST CHARGES by Zone
Who chose to do this? Not me. Who gave away power by letting rates change without Congressional legislation? Not me. It must be the same Congress that lost the power to declare war (we fight anyway ), the same Congress that passes laws and then grants retroactive immunity if you break them, the same Congress that tells the people what is "on the table" and what is "not on the table." Funny, I thought I was the one who sent you to Washington as my representative. You know, "House of Representatives"? As we watch our Post Office fall apart, could there be a hand under the table, a soft word behind closed doors? Does somebody like what's going on here?
THE JUNK MAIL STORY: Well, I can send up to a pound of junk mail for about half of what it costs you to mail just one letter. Search on "Pound Prices" Periodicals "Advertising Portion" in Google.com, dig it out, it's there. Again, **you** pay for your ounce, they pay less for their pound. And, are you home when the mail arrives? Take a look at the weight your Letter Carrier carries.
The U.S. Postal Service no longer serves the U. S. people. Whether you are working there or just trying to mail a letter, the U.S. Postal Service no longer serves the people of this country.
Dear US Postal Service, drop the subsidy for big junk mailers and the big corporations that use them. **Then** tell me about the Internet. **Then** cry about fewer ordinary people sending fewer ordinary letters. All of us using this rate page can tell you what it's really like to mail something, but first drop your subsidy for corporations.
Dear Corporations: don't rail against "big government" while you feed on subsidies at the public trough. It's not polite to talk with your mouth full. Don't tell me about black welfare mothers and Food Stamps until you get off welfare yourself. Pay enough to give them a profit, do not bleed my Post Office white. The Post Office serves the country that I love, and shame on you for trying to take it away from me.
THE SMALL TOWN POST OFFICE STORY: This Web page was inspired by a similar rate page put up by the local post office in Lafayette, Tennessee. The government Websites were driving me crazy. Finally I found the Lafayette TN page that told me how to put stamps on my letter so I could just put it outside and come back in for a cup of coffee. Some guys who work there and one or two of their buddies put up a Web page with the few simple rates that most of us need most of the time. I put up my page to be like theirs. I put up something myself so I could be less formal than the government, and add some common sense, such as, "If it isn't machinable, it costs more--here's what the penalty is."
Then what?
Soon the rates were changing two different times a year. The rate structure was getting complicated (zones for Priority that used to be the same for the whole country, rates to Canada and Mexico that used to be the same became different). Tennessee gave up. That's right -- the town post office took down their rate page and gave up. I challenge you to find any place in the USA besides this place that posts the postage rates of the USA --the ones you need, all on one page. I also apologize for any errors on my page, but at least you can get an overview and the logic -- if there is any -- behind the rules. Maybe I helped you pick the service you want before you went to http://postcalc.usps.gov/ Maybe you won't stand in line like me only to discover you chose the wrong envelope (and have to go home to fix it).
THE PROFITS THAT WENT INTO THE PIGGY BANK. The final blow has been a sensible requirement to make the Post Office put money in the piggy bank NOW to cover the retirement benefits of all its employees TOMORROW. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) sounded sensible at the time, but forces the USPS to get 75 years worth of future health care benefits for future retirees funded now, in ten years — a requirement imposed upon no other government organization. Humm. Until the Great Recession, the Post Office was making enough profits to fill a sixty billion dollar piggy bank. (75 years? People retire at age 65, so the Post Office is being forced to save now for the retirement of people they haven't hired yet. Humm. )
Then the lies begin. Did you know about the piggy bank? I didn't think so. Did you know it was $50 to $60 billion big? Guess nobody mentioned that either. The Post Office is making profits and saving them to take care of its "family" for the future, but what we hear is that, after the "cost" of feeding the piggy bank, the USPS is a loser. It is a clever drama. They're not really lying, just waiting for us to forget. It's simple: require the Post Office to save whatever is extra, and then tell the public, Look, there's nothing extra, they are not smart enough to make profits.
By June 2011, the Post Office had put $20.95B into the Piggy Bank, and run up a $19.50B deficit. Here's the math: $20.95B - $19.50B = $1.45 billion dollars in profit for the Post Office since the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.
So, deficit or profit -- you decide. Congress has already decided. To "save" the Post Office from running out of money, our national leadership will see to it that the USPS closes more than half its mail processing centers so that overnight delivery of first-class mail is impossible now, and will never be possible again.
Big government can't run any businesses, they always fail. If they are not failing fast enough, then we help them out. Amtrak, the Post Office, thay are all the same, they are all money-losers. Give the business to corporations that know how to make a profit.
#3 FedEx $34B in revenues in 2010
#2 brown UPS $50B 2010
#1 U.S. Postal Service $65B 2011
Number One, the USPS: sixty-five billion in revs -- the 2nd largest civilian employer in the country (over half a million career employees), the largest fleet of vehicles in the world. And when #3 and #2 tear out the profitable parts of the corpse, I'm sure rural Americans will not pay more than the rest of us to get their mail, and I'm sure all 574,000 USPS employees (2011) will move into the private sector without layoffs, and all the pensions will be protected and nobody will lose their health insurance, and there won't be any office temps and even the contractors won't be forced to drive their own cars because we never hire contractors just to avoid giving out employee benefits, like real jobs have. And kiddies need a Piggy Bank but we're grown-ups, so don't tell us what cash reserves we should keep on our books.
Civic society -- our communities and our relations with one another -- is not what counts when profit comes first. The country -- the welfare of the United States of America, its role in the world, its greatness as a nation -- is not what counts when profit comes first. In the end, greatness is what we lose when narrowly-defined profit (for whom? for what?) is our first pursuit. All of us can count on a future in which the US Postal Service delivers junk mail at reduced rates for corporate clients right up until the day the system vanishes forever. On that day there will be less competition for the corporations that killed it and want the business. Live with it, get with the program. The failure of post offices in every town in the country is the free market at work. So just accept it. And when the banks failed?
--jerry
J. I. Nelson, Ph.D.
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International and Postcards PRIORITY
ExpressMail $$$ and insurance MediaMail (bookrate)
Money Orders, Delivery Confirm Print your own zone chart Parcel Post
home for this Website
Back to reality and 35 lbs of mail.
Maybe next time ask if they offer a shredder option.
Revised 29Jan2011 LargeEnv clarity; and no online purchases anymore 3Mar2011;
15Feb11 bad env penalty still 20 cents ; 17Apr11 rate change; 10Jun11 Flats3oz-vs-1stClass
24Oct2011 70lb limits, on-line access thru PayPal 25OctPkgs; gold. weight; 2Nov links to Parcel Post
23,24Jan2012: Everything.