The U.S. Postal Service is targeting 3,700 post offices (can get the list here) across the country that could be closed, the largest downsizing in the history of the money-losing agency.
The unprofitable stations, branches and main offices that could be shuttered starting in January account for about 11 percent of the Postal Service’s retail operations. In the Washington area, 32 post offices could be jettisoned, from those servicing Congress in the U.S. Capitol to ones in Silver Spring and downtown Leesburg.
Another 124 elsewhere in Maryland and Virginia are on the list, with the rest are scattered across 47 other states. The local post office with an American flag flying overhead has helped define communities — rural, suburban and urban — in many of these areas for more than two centuries.
The Postal Service hopes the contraction will save $200 million a year. That does not come close to recouping the $8 billion the agency is expected to lose for the second year running as it fights plummeting mail volume. But postal officials said they intend to review half of their network of 32,000 post offices for closure in the next decade as they try to slash labor costs.
“We’ve made heroic efforts to take costs out of the organization while continuing to provide services,” Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said at a news conference, comparing his agency’s financial struggles to the federal government’s effort to stay within its cap on borrowing.
“We have employees waiting for customers to come into their lobbies, and they have less than two hours they’re working,” he said.
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