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Apr 22, 2012

E-mail Isn’t Killing the Post Office - @IEEESpectrum

True or false: The U.S. Postal Service is struggling financially because e-mail and the Internet have rendered it obsolete.

False.

Yes, this independent agency of the federal government has reported losses—billion-dollar losses—in recent years. But technology is not the cause.

Rather, in 2006, then president George W. Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act [PDF], which mandated that the USPS set aside 75 years of health-care costs for its retired employees over the ensuing 10 years.

“No other corporation or government agency that I know of has to prefund their retirees’ health benefits [like this],” says Philip Rubio, assistant professor in the University Studies program at North Carolina A&T State University, in Greensboro. “We’re talking about postal workers who haven’t even been born yet.”

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