Will Lack of Saturday Mail Impact You? Locals Say 'Not In The Least'

Calling the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model “no longer sustainable,” the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday it will eliminate Saturday delivery of mail by Aug. 1.

The plan to change delivery from six days a week to five would only affect first-class mail. Packages, mail-order medicines, priority and express mail would still be delivered on Saturdays, and local post offices will remain open for business Saturdays.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the reasons are continued economic struggles and the increasing use of the Internet for communications and bill paying by consumers. The U.S. Postal Service is also the only federal agency required to pre-fund health benefits for retirees, and those costs are escalating quickly.

Local U.S. Postal Service spokesperson Pete Nowacki told Golden Valley Patch that impacts at local offices, like the one located on Golden Valley Road, are still unknown.

"There’s really no way to determine impacts to individual offices yet," Nowacki told Patch. "As for customer and community impacts, the only change is that we won’t be doing regular delivery on Saturdays as we have [been]."

On Golden Valley Patch's Facebook Page, locals said that they are not bothered by the change. Facebook friend Eric Swanson said that the change would mean "one less day of junkmail to throw away." When asked if no mail on Saturday would impact him, user Joe Zaier said, "Not in the least."

Saturday is the lightest mail delivery day by volume and many businesses are closed on Saturdays, according to the U.S. Postal Service. However, many residents receive print magazines and ads on Saturdays in the mail that may be shifted to another day.

A Rasmussen poll on mail delivery in 2012 showed “Three-out-of-four Americans (75%) would prefer the U.S. Postal Service cut mail delivery to five days a week rather than receive government subsidies to cover ongoing losses.”

A USA Today/Gallup poll in 2010 found the majority of U.S. residents surveyed were ok with eliminating Saturday delivery. The March 2010 telephone survey of 999 adults revealed people age 55 and older were more likely than younger people to have used the mail to pay a bill or send a letter in the past two weeks.

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Speak out: How will this change affect you? Will you miss getting mail on Saturdays?