Postal Service to make cuts, eliminate next-day mail

    Sending out holiday cards? Next year, you might want to consider just dropping them off at your neighbors’ houses instead.

    The U.S. Postal Service will make cuts to first-class mail in the spring, meaning even the snowman cards you send to people nearby won’t arrive the next day.

    Update, 12:25 p.m. Facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will close as part of USPS’s $3 billion reduction plan: Edison, Pleasantville, Eatontown, Kearny, Teterboro and Bellmawr facilities in New Jersey; and Pittsburgh, Scranton, Reading, Erie and Altoona facilities in Pennsylvania. Processing and distribution in Horsham, Lancaster, New Castle, Wiliamsport and Chester County would also shut down.

    Look for more details later on how Delaware will be affected.

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    The Associated Press reports:

     

    “The cuts, now being finalized, would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as March. Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971.”

    First class mail will be delivered in two to three days, and periodicals will arrive within two to nine days.

    It’s part of USPS’s plan to reduce costs as it faces bankruptcy, though there’s always the chance that cutting services could push people further away from traditional mail.

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