
U.S. Postal Service (USPS) stakeholders complained to Congress last month that a 10-year overhaul launched under former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has worsened mail service and failed to achieve its ambitious financial goals.
DeJoy's sweeping "Delivering for America" (DFA) plan was designed to save the USPS $36 billion over 10 years by consolidating smaller processing centers, slowing delivery times to rural areas, and reorganizing the service's network to direct mail through regional hubs. But the DFA "is pushing the Postal Service further away from its core mission of providing reliable, affordable, and universal service," said Package Shippers Association CEO Jim Cochrane, speaking at a Congressional government operations oversight subcommittee hearing on June 24.
"The plan is demonstrably failing to meet the needs of the American people," he added, detailing how DFA has delayed crucial investments in last-mile delivery infrastructure. Cochrane went on to label DFA's mission to have the USPS achieve financial solvency as "deeply flawed," and asserted that the plan has actually led to losses in revenue stemming from increased operational costs and "misplaced investments." The USPS reported $3.3 billion in net losses in the second quarter of 2025, up from $1.3 billion in that same quarter in the previous year.
Association for Postal Commerce (APC) CEO Mike Plunkett also pointed to how his organization's members have seen "unprecedented rate increases and service degradation" under the DFA plan, and warned that planned rate hikes combined with reduced incentives for worksharing — where mailers sort, barcode or transport mail in exchange for postage discounts — could lead to gridlocked delivery networks by mid-July. Both Plunkett and Cochrane called on the USPS to pause DFA initiatives in order to give newly-appointed Postmaster General David Steiner time to assess and address any potential "long-term structural issues."
This also is not the first time aspects of DFA have come under fire. During a December 2024 Congressional hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) accused DeJoy of using DFA to make Americans "pay higher prices for worse service," while Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) vowed to do everything in his power to kill a proposal from DeJoy to lower targets for on-time mail delivery in 2025. A month later, the Postal Regulatory Commission issued an advisory to the USPS, urging it to reconsider "whether the speculative, meager gains from the proposal outweigh the certain downgrade in service for a significant portion of the nation."
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