3 ms·

I completely agree with you. With a quick Google search. USPS operating budget 82 billion. FedEx operating budget 4 billion. Obviously this is not a complete

I completely agree with you. With a quick Google search. USPS operating budget 82 billion. FedEx operating budget 4 billion. Obviously this is not a complete comparison and you would need to also include volume and other metrics to get closer to the truth. But this is potentially a canary in the coal mine for how inefficient the USPS. It's possible that the Democrats are saying that the Republicans are attacking the post office to get a political win. But in actuality the Republicans may be searching for more efficiency. I don't know if any of this is true but this is another viewpoint.

TimBurr 5y ago
On a quick and dirty look, I don't think those figures are right. Here's what I found for 2020: USPS 2020 Revenues & Expenses Package revenue: $28,537M Overall revenue: $73,123M Overall expenses: $82,309M Net profit: -$ 9,176M Mail volume - pieces per year Packages: ~6.4B Marketing mail: ~75B First class mail: ~54B The press release listed all volumes as changes and percents - I've made a quick effort to back out approximate total volumes. Data from https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-usps-reports-fiscal-year-2020-results.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-... Fedex Revenues & Expenses Package revenue: Unknown Overall revenue: $69,217M Net profit: $ 1,286M Mail volume - pieces per year Packages: ~4.6B Marketing mail: N/A First class mail: N/A Packages are presented per day, but only count operating days (255/yr) The source I found split expenses up into cost of goods sold/SG&A/other/operating. I'm not clear what each one means and don't want to misrepresent - try the link! Data from https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/company-structure.html https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/company-structure.html and https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FDX/fedex/financial-statements https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FDX/fedex/financia... So USPS carries more packages, as well as insane volumes of mail that UPS/FedEx won't. Despite the significant volume differences, expenses are within 20% between the companies.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  Thank you for looking into this! That was very informative! I'm going to look a little deeper into it but that makes me feel better about the efficiency of the post office now.
- JPKab 5y ago
  This was an excellent and informative post. The USPS really gets hosed by the fact that they are required to have a fixed price for the most rural, low-density locations that UPS and FedEx would never deliver to.

TimBurr 5y ago

On a quick and dirty look, I don't think those figures are right. Here's what I found for 2020: USPS 2020 Revenues & Expenses Package revenue: $28,537M Overall revenue: $73,123M Overall expenses: $82,309M Net profit: -$ 9,176M Mail volume - pieces per year Packages: ~6.4B Marketing mail: ~75B First class mail: ~54B The press release listed all volumes as changes and percents - I've made a quick effort to back out approximate total volumes. Data from https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-usps-reports-fiscal-year-2020-results.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-... Fedex Revenues & Expenses Package revenue: Unknown Overall revenue: $69,217M Net profit: $ 1,286M Mail volume - pieces per year Packages: ~4.6B Marketing mail: N/A First class mail: N/A Packages are presented per day, but only count operating days (255/yr) The source I found split expenses up into cost of goods sold/SG&A/other/operating. I'm not clear what each one means and don't want to misrepresent - try the link! Data from https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/company-structure.html https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/company-structure.html and https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FDX/fedex/financial-statements https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FDX/fedex/financia... So USPS carries more packages, as well as insane volumes of mail that UPS/FedEx won't. Despite the significant volume differences, expenses are within 20% between the companies.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
Thank you for looking into this! That was very informative! I'm going to look a little deeper into it but that makes me feel better about the efficiency of the post office now.
JPKab 5y ago
This was an excellent and informative post. The USPS really gets hosed by the fact that they are required to have a fixed price for the most rural, low-density locations that UPS and FedEx would never deliver to.