Letters: Postal Service still matters

Re “Saturday mail — and red ink,” Editorial, April 11

The Times minimizes the need for Saturday delivery and glosses over one of the biggest culprits for the U.S. Postal Service’s financial troubles: the responsibility for retiree benefits. The Postal Service is required by federal law to pre-fund retiree benefits, a burden that isn’t placed on any other organization and costs it billions of dollars a year.

Not everyone uses email, and the private delivery companies are much more expensive than the Postal Service. It seems there is a push to privatize every possible service run by the government.

Sue Roediger

Alhambra

Agreed: The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t exist mainly to provide jobs. But providing pretty good jobs is an excellent reason to maintain the service and six-day-a-week delivery.

A few days before this editorial was published, The Times ran grim reports on the declining quality of private-sector jobs. Where will good jobs for the average worker come from if not government employment?

Frank Stricker

Gardena

The problem with getting rid of Saturday delivery is that the letter carriers would have to deliver six days’ worth of mail in five. I don’t know about your postal carrier, but ours is overloaded and overworked already. Last Monday he delivered our mail at 9 p.m., which isn’t uncommon.

Steve Paskay

Los Angeles

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