Postal service

If you ask the postmaster general, saving the Post Office will require shutting down one out of three post offices, laying off tens of thousands of postal workers, and ending Saturday mail delivery. Trouble is, he's wrong.

In a last-ditch effort to save itself from bankruptcy, the Postal Service is forging ahead with plans to close half of its 500 mail processing centers and roughly 3,700 of its post offices. The result: Deliveries will take longer.

The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service said Monday it is seeking to move quickly to close 252 mail processing centers and slow first-class delivery next spring, citing steadily declining mail volume. The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the agency avert bankruptcy next year.

It'll cost a penny more to mail a letter next year. The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that it will increase postage rates on Jan. 22, including a one-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail, to 45 cents.

On Tuesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe went before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to plead for a government bailout. USPS is losing $9.2 billion a year and is currently on track to lose $20 billion annually by 2015. How can it be saved?

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned that the Postal Service is on "the brink of default" as he battles to keep his agency solvent. Without legislation by Sept. 30, the agency "will default on a mandated $5.5 billion payment to the Treasury," Donahoe told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs. Facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, the agency also wants to pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers and set up its own benefit...

In DailyFinance's new video series, My Three Cents, personal finance columnist Regina Lewis discusses tips and trends affecting today's consumer market. This week's focus: continuing trouble at the U.S. Postal Service.

The U.S. Postal Service warned that it will miss federal payments totaling an estimated $6.8 billion by October, unless the government steps in.

The U.S. Postal Service's annual loss more than doubled in fiscal 2010 compared to a year earlier as mail volume continues to slide while interest costs related to workers' compensation climb.