POLITICAL VOLUME STARTS TO HAVE AN IMPACT
Not such a good work for USPS, but there is a tremendous volume of political mail on the system along with “extraordinary measures” being taken for ballot mail. First-Class letters on-time percentage dropped by 10% from the prior week, with the most slowing occurring in “swing” states. Average Delivery Days added about a day from YTD figures.
Marketing Mail letters dropped below 94% on time, an unusually low percentage. We attribute the drop to a flood of political mail and expect it to get worse in the next two weeks. Our expectation – and hope – is that it will recover after the election.
All in all, performance is not dramatically worse. Ballots we are tracking are flying through the system. That is one ball USPS does not want to drop.
