Their prices - rates - are set by Congress, their market share is dropping as Internet, email, and cheap long-distance phone rates eat into their first class mail business. FedEx and UPS compete for package delivery service.
Meanwhile their large workforce is unionized. The contracts they've signed with those unions bar layoffs. Plus they pay for government-style benefits and retirement.
The number of pieces of mail USPS carries has dropped, and they need to cut costs in order to keep expenditures down to something they can cover. Logically,, they need to close post offices, lay off workers, and charge more for the mail they do carry. Ending Saturday delivery has also been suggested.
In order to facilitate a recovery, Congress needs to enable the USPS to go through what amounts to Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This would allow the USPS to set its own rates and renegotiate its union contracts to lower wages, spend less on health care and retirement, and permit layoffs of workers and closure of offices no longer needed.
Senators from rural states, including mine, probably won't permit closure of the low-volume small town post offices much treasured by their constituents. And there is another problem, those who absolutely rely on USPS.
Two groups much dependent on USPS are the poor and old folks who have no computer skills and no desire to learn them. To say to them "do your business online" just doesn't work, it is like saying "pilot a plane" to most of us. The other DrC and I took a few moments and thought of four people we know who have no computer access or skill; they absolutely need the U.S. mail.
The USPS is a thorny problem, particularly for a Congress with a very lame track record. For more information, see this article in The Atlantic.
