How in the world can we send a letter from N.Y. to L.A. for only 41 cents?

Question

For goodness sake, gas is $3 bucks a gallon or more. It must cost more than 41 cents to drive it from the local post office to your house.

Answer 1

The PO... you can't get a better bargain then that
even in the dollar store!

Answer 2

The cost of first class postage is an average of the total pieces of mail sent, nationwide.

In other words, it doesn't cost the post office .41 to take a letter from the post office in your town and deliver it one block away. Lets assume it costs .01

Consequently , lets assume it costs $1.00 for them to get a letter from NYC to LA.

They take the average cost of all the mail and that's what becomes the base price. Other considerations are then factored in - possibly fuel and labor, etc...

In colonial times, and even as late as the 1840's, mail was priced by the individual piece, depending on how far that specific letter or package had to go!

I know standardized postage began in 1847 in the US when the first 'national' stamps were issued...

Answer 3

It's called going out of style. The US postal service knows that it is quickly going the way of the horse and buggy as other forms of communication jump to the forefront.

In other words, E-mail is free! Add free online billpay, competing package transporters, etc... and then tell me, is 41 cents really that great a deal?

The Post Office is under the gun my friend and keeping costs as low as possible is the only way to hold off the inevitable.

Once the older baby boomers are gone there really wont be much use for snail mail at all.

Answer 4

The textbook answer: Economies of scale and scope.

The explanation:

Econonmy of scale means that it's cheaper to drive 100 letters over 1 mile than it is to drive just one letter one mile.

Chances are, you get more than one letter per day. Same for your neighbour. 3 letters times 30 houses is 90 letters. If each letter carrier works 10 streets, that's 900 letters.

For 1 truck to deliver a bag of 900 letters from the post office to the letter carrier, the fuel per letter is much less than if the truck had to do the same route for just one letter. 900 x $0.41 = $369.

So for $369, you can buy fuel, and pay the driver, and the carrier.

Economy of scope means that the letter carrier is not a 'jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none' - the letter carrier is a specialist, and knows how to sort the letters for his/her route faster than the general public (via machine, etc) -knows how to cut across the corner of your lawn, etc, and probably is in good shape from all the walking.

So if you know how to do something faster, better, more efficiently, and in bulk, you are using economies of scale and scope.

Answer 5

All the junk mail pays for running the post office. The first-class single-piece 41 cent mail pales in comparison to all the junk mail.

Answer 6

Economies of Scale allow for this to happen.

Plus, I'm sure that part of the US Income Tax you pay helps offset the real cost you see when licking the stamp

Bottom line.. it's a racket.. it should probably cost less in my opinion.

I thought Technology was supposed to make things more affordable but instead..the greedy are charging more.

Answer 7

You have to consider that hundreds and hundreds of letters can be driven together in one easy, manageable bin or bag. 41 cents multiplied hundreds of times over all going to the same place is how they can pay for them to travel by plane across the country.

Answer 8

Economy of scale.

It's expensive to move a leter from N.Y. to L.A.
But that cost is spread across thosands of letters.

Answer 9

You're much too young to remember, or for that matter even know, that "we" used to do it for 4 cents or less not that many yrs. ago. Basically it's called greed, but to be "politically correct" it's called inflation...

Answer 10

Cause it costs me the same to send one right up the street!!