The postmaster common is liable for getting billions of items of mail throughout the globe, managing a whole bunch of hundreds of staff and caring for a few of the nation’s most susceptible Individuals.
The company is presently run by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who served in President Donald Trump’s first administration and through President Joe Biden’s time period as properly. He is likely one of the few key advisers to serve in each Trump administrations.
I’m a law professor who has studied the United States Postal Service and the position of the postmaster common.
Right here’s what having the job of overseeing the Postal Service entails. Spoiler: It’s about greater than getting your mail delivered.
Sprawling duties of the postmaster
The postmaster common abroad an enormous operation.
Over 44% of the world’s mail is processed and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, making it the biggest supply service on this planet.
In 2023 alone, the Postal Service dealt with 116.2 billion items of mail. And whereas processing and delivering mail is the important thing part of the Postal Service’s mission, it has different tasks as properly.
In some ways, in reality, it’s the nondelivery components of the group which have the largest impression on the U.S. economic system.
In 2023, USPS owned or leased 22,873 properties across the nation. To position this in perspective, the Normal Providers Administration – often known as “America’s landlord” – owns or leases solely 8,800 properties.
The company additionally paid US$2 billion in wage and advantages to its 525,469 career employees and processed greater than 8.5 million passport applications.
Lastly, USPS has a mandate that helps the well being of many Individuals. The service’s “final mile” supply dedication ensures that every one Individuals – even these dwelling in rural communities – obtain mail supply six days every week. That is notably essential for individuals with out quick access to medical providers, because it usually offers lifesaving medications to people in need.
These are all official duties. Unofficially, the Postal Service has lengthy been recognized to help aged residents and reply to emergency conditions that happen on letter carriers’ routes. In early January 2025, for instance, a Massachusetts mail provider was able to save a house from burning by shortly extinguishing a fireplace.
As my co-author Matt Titolo and I’ve written elsewhere, “Americans depend on USPS for a bunch of important providers together with meals, drugs, paying payments, purchasing, and working small companies.”
Deep roots in US historical past
That deep reference to communities has been part of USPS since its founding. Actually, the postal system is older than the nation itself, with Benjamin Franklin serving as the first head of the group starting in 1775.
When the U.S. Structure was ratified in 1789, it included Article 1, Part 8 – commonly known as the postal clause – which explicitly offers Congress the power “to establish Post Offices and post Roads” and “to make all Legal guidelines which shall be mandatory and correct” to implement the duty.
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Till 1971 the postmaster common was a Cupboard-level place and fifth within the presidential line of succession – coming proper after the lawyer common and proper earlier than the secretary of the Inside. The postmaster common was faraway from the Cupboard, and the road of succession, in 1971 when Congress reorganized the Post Office and gave it its new title of the U.S. Postal Service.
Since that reorganization, the president now not has the ability to appoint – or fire – the postmaster common. That energy lies with the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, whose members are appointed by the president with the recommendation and consent of the Senate.
The way forward for the Postal Service
Through the years, postmaster generals have mentioned moving USPS away from its roots as a service-oriented group and towards a typical enterprise operation. Presidential candidates, together with Trump, have called for either full or partial privatization of the company.
Certainly, USPS faces continuous deficit problems. However privatization and a ensuing give attention to earnings would doubtless enhance the price of mailing a letter, a change that will disproportionately have an effect on low-income individuals and small businesses – and will even end in service cuts to rural areas, making life for Individuals dwelling there tougher and fewer wholesome.
As Forbes experiences, critics and proponents of the transfer to denationalise acknowledge it might end in “fewer days of mail providers, longer mail supply timelines or less access to USPS services.”
This story is a part of a series of profiles of Cupboard and high-level administration positions.
