The Post Office Might Run Out of Money in 12 Months
The US Postal Service, which lost $9 billion in 2025, has warned it could exhaust its available funds within 12 months. The warning is not hypothetical — it’s the agency’s own projection, based on current revenue trends and cost structures.
USPS is in a structural bind that has no obvious exit. Mail volume has been declining for two decades as digital communication replaced physical correspondence. Package delivery, which was supposed to compensate, has become intensely competitive with UPS, FedEx, and Amazon’s own logistics network. Meanwhile, USPS is legally required to deliver to every address in the country six days a week — a universal service obligation that its competitors do not share.
Congressional solutions have been floated and shelved repeatedly. The core tension is political: rural communities depend on USPS in ways that urban areas don’t, which gives rural legislators leverage to block any reform that reduces service or raises stamp prices.
If USPS runs out of money, the federal government will face a choice between a bailout, restructuring with service cuts, or privatization. None of those options is politically easy. All of them are on the table whether Congress acknowledges it or not.