Hope you have a couple more pennies in your wallet, because starting Monday that’s how much more a postage stamp will cost.
Right now, a first-class stamp will run you 42 cents. Under the new price increase, customers will pay 44 cents. It’s a move that the Postal Service hopes will bring in added income to help supplement the $2.8 billion loss last year and the $2.3 billion loss just halfway through 2009.
Postmaster General John Potter has asked Congress for permission to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. The agency is trying to cut costs in other ways, including offering early retirement to workers and freezing officer and executive salaries at 2008 pay levels.
The new stamp increase isn’t the only change: postcard stamps will increase a penny to 28 cents, international postcards will cost more, large envelope weight prices will increase and the price to ship parcels will go up as well.
Postal officials estimate the increase will cost the average household $3 a year.
