The Senate could vote on the Postal Service Reform Act as early as this week, according to several reports. The $57 billion bailout enjoys bipartisan support in both chambers and sailed through the House of Representatives in early February.

You've probably noticed delivery delays and fewer mailboxes in your neighborhood. That's because the post Office is facing crippling financial losses coupled with antiquated equipment and staffing shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Should the measure pass, it would shore up the post office's long-term money woes and make sure it retains its six-day delivery schedule. But it won't stop planned price hikes and continued service delays. 

Here's what you need to know about the problems plaguing the post office, the efforts to address them and how they could impact your mail service.

For more, read about how online shopping has slowed the mail service, security issues with the Postal Service's "informed delivery" program and how to order free at-home COVID-19 test kits from the post office.

The post office's ongoing problems

COVID-19 has only compounded issues with the Postal Service fueled by declining mail use and outdated technology. In addition, the sharp increase in e-commerce deliveries fueled by the pandemic has been met with major staffing shortages.

The Postal Service Reform Act

The bipartisan bill is intended to fortify the post office's problematic finances and services, which were thrown into the spotlight during the 2020 presidential election, when the Postal Service attempted to scale back delivery as a record number of voters cast their ballots by mail.    

The reforms included in the act are intended to "ensure the Postal Service continues as an independently operated organization that Americans can continue to rely on for the years to come," according to co-sponsor Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, which supervises the USPS.

Among other things, the Postal Service Reform Act would require mail service to continue six days a week. (Trimming it to five or even three days a week has been raised as a cost-cutting measure for at least a decade.) 

The act would also repeal a costly requirement that the service prepay employees' retirement health benefits -- an uncommon practice that "unfairly and unnecessarily burdens the Postal Service," according to the White House (PDF), which backs the bill. Postal Service retirees would instead enroll in Medicare, Politico reported, saving the agency tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.

And it would establish a performance dashboard giving real-time status updates on conditions at mailing facilities and on-time metrics for different categories of mail.

The bill would also allow the Postal Service to offload some duties not related to the mail -- like issuing passports and hunting and fishing licenses -- to local, state and tribal governments.

Perhaps most essentially, the legislation would wipe clean $57 billion of the agency's debt and save it another $50 billion over the next decade. 

Amazon, Hallmark, Publishers Clearing House and many other corporations have supported the legislation, as have unions like the National Association of Letter Carriers and the American Postal Workers Union.

Postmaster General DeJoy made passage of the Postal Service Reform Act a major part of his 10-year plan to restructure the ailing service.

Flaws in the bill

Shifting postal workers' retirement health benefits to Medicare could save the USPS about $5.6 billion through 2031, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But it would add $5.5 billion in costs to Medicare in the same period, NPR reported, and probably significantly more down the line.

In addition, House Democrats wanted provisions in the bill protecting mail-in voting in the bill, along with funds for electric mail trucks and restrictions on political donations by the postmaster general and the Postal Service's board of governors. But those provisions were peeled away during negotiations with DeJoy, House Republicans and postal worker unions. 

Paul Steidler is a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, a conservative public-policy think tank. In a Feb. 11 opinion piece for The Hill, Steidler proposed a half-dozen problems with the Postal Service Reform Act, including that it fails to ensure that the USPS is self-supporting and doesn't require the agency to spell out its costs or strengthen the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Most notably, it wouldn't restore the quality of mail service, which is slower now than it was 50 years ago.

Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, has pushed for Postal Service reforms for years. But he announced last month he could not support the current legislation. 

"It doesn't go far enough," Issa said on the House floor. "This is not sufficient reform."

The Postal Service's plan to save money

Shortly after taking office in June 2020, DeJoy announced a controversial 10-year strategy to overhaul the 230-year-old agency, addressing its mounting financial crisis and chipping away at its multibillion-dollar debt. 

DeJoy's plan, which he calls Delivering for America, includes modernizing the agency's ancient delivery-vehicle fleet in 2023, enabling the USPS to move a higher volume of mail for less money than airplanes. In late February, the Postal Service finalized plans to purchase up to 148,000 gasoline-powered mail trucks, ignoring requests from the EPA and White House to consider a fleet of at least 10% electric vehicles.

The EPA proposal would have cost up to $11.3 billion but was more in line with the Biden administration's climate-change goals.

DeJoy's plan also contains proposed investments in postal facilities, equipment and infrastructure to help the Postal Service compete against private package-delivery companies like UPS, FedEx and Amazon.

Higher prices and mail delays remain

DeJoy's Delivering for America plan also included austerity measures, like decommissioning hundreds of high-speed mail-sorting machines, eliminating overtime, banning additional trips to deliver mail and removing sidewalk mailboxes that get less than 25 stamped mail pieces per day.

The Postal Service has already raised the price of stamps, while slowing service and reducing hours at post offices across the country.

After new service standards were enacted on Oct. 1, almost four in 10 pieces of mail were delivered late, taking up to five days instead of the previously guaranteed one to three days.

The slowdown in October followed an August price hike, with a first-class stamp rising from 55 to 58 cents, and another (temporary) hike of the cost to ship a parcel during the 2021 holiday season. The independent Postal Regulatory Commission said there won't be another increase until this summer, but regular price hikes will likely come twice a year starting in 2023. 

In a July 2021 advisory opinion, the PRC expressed concern that the proposed price and service changes had not been pilot-tested. The Commission also said the savings from the service won't lead to "much improvement" in the service's dire financial situation. 

Some lawmakers have also criticized DeJoy's agenda: Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia who chairs the subcommittee responsible for postal issues, called it "a draconian plan that guarantees the death spiral of the United States Postal Service."

Who will be most impacted by mail slowdowns?

The Postal Service's strategy is expected to slow target delivery times for first-class mail and periodicals by about 30% nationwide. 

For some, it will be an inconvenience, but for others -- including seniors who rely on prescription deliveries, small businesses that mail invoices and anyone who pays bills through the mail -- further delays could be devastating. 

"Cuts to service standards for first-class mail, limiting hours at local post offices and making it more difficult for people to access postal products would adversely impact USPS customers across the nation, including in rural and underserved communities," Peters said.

Who runs the US Postal Service?

While most Americans think of the postmaster general as the head of the post office, the Postal Service is really overseen by a board of governors, consisting of up to nine members appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. 

Board members serve seven-year terms and no more than five of the nine members may belong to the same political party.  

The board of governors appoints the postmaster general for an indefinite term and they are the only ones who can remove him or her from office. 

Concerns about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

DeJoy has denied undermining mail service in support of Trump's campaign to discredit mail-in ballots. But in November 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration "continue[s] to be deeply troubled" by DeJoy's potential conflicts of interest.

Can the postmaster general be replaced? 

While the president cannot "fire" the postmaster general, President Joe Biden has already installed three new board members: former Deputy Postmaster General Ron Stroman and former American Postal Workers Union General Counsel Anton Hajjar, both Democrats, and Amber McReynolds, head of The National Vote at Home Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on expanding postal voting in the US.

Back in November, Biden nominated candidates to replace two outgoing members, John Barger and board chair Ron Bloom, a Trump appointee and former Obama administration official who is finishing up a one-year holdover term. 

Biden's picks are Daniel Tangherlini, administrator of the United States General Services Administration, and Derek Kan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. But in four months the Senate has yet to consider either nominee.

Should they be confirmed, Biden appointees would hold a five-to-four majority and have the power to remove DeJoy.

"It's up to the board to make a determination about leadership," Psaki said in November, "but we have continued concerns about the postmaster general's leadership."