Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP / Getty Images
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) may run out of money within a year — and could be unable to pay its workers and vendors as soon as February 2027 — unless Congress steps in to lift borrowing limits and reform outdated regulations.
Postmaster General David Steiner delivered that stark warning Tuesday (March 17) before a House Oversight subcommittee, telling lawmakers the agency is at a breaking point. "I am not sure that the American public is aware that the Postal Service is at a critical juncture," Steiner said in written testimony. "At our current run rate, we will be out of cash in less than 12 months."
The timeline could be even shorter. When pressed by Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Steiner said USPS could run dry as soon as October if it continues paying retirement and other obligations at current levels.
Unlike most federal agencies, USPS does not receive annual taxpayer funding. It supports itself through stamp sales and service fees while being required by law to deliver mail six days a week to every address in the country. Mail volume has dropped from roughly 220 billion pieces at its 2006 peak to about 110 billion today, as more Americans pay bills and communicate online.
"Take those 110 billion and put a $0.78 stamp on them. That's $86 billion of revenue that evaporated in 15 years," Steiner told the Associated Press. "If either FedEx or UPS lost $86 billion of revenue, they would have no revenue."
To keep running, USPS has borrowed from the U.S. Treasury and delayed some pension payments in recent years. But federal law caps the agency's borrowing at $15 billion — a limit unchanged since 1992 — and Steiner says that ceiling has now been hit. USPS ended fiscal year 2025 with a net loss of $9 billion and posted its fourth consecutive quarterly loss earlier this year.
Steiner, who took over as postmaster general last July after serving as CEO of the nation's largest waste management company and as a board member of FedEx, is pushing Congress to raise the debt cap, allow USPS to set postage prices high enough to cover costs, and reform retiree health and pension obligations. He has said raising the price of a first-class stamp from $0.78 to $0.95 would go a long way toward stabilizing the agency's finances.
David Marroni, a senior official at the Government Accountability Office who also testified at Tuesday's hearing, agreed that USPS cannot fix its problems alone. "I do think that congressional action is going to be needed," Marroni told lawmakers, adding that Congress must also decide what level of postal service the country needs going forward — and how to pay for it.
Lawmakers at the hearing signaled a mix of urgency and caution. GOP Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, the subcommittee's chair, said he opposes raising the price of a first-class stamp to a dollar but acknowledged the weight of the moment. "The buck stops here now," Sessions said. "The postmaster general laid it on our doorstep, and we're not going to kick the can down the road."
Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland said raising the debt limit is likely unavoidable. "Rather than do nothing and watch the Titanic sink, we need to do something," Mfume said.
Meanwhile, the board of governors' chair, Amber McReynolds, said at a February public meeting that "policymakers must act urgently to address the structural and statutory cost pressures that continue to weigh heavily on our financial future."
The USPS financial crisis has drawn attention from the White House as well. President Trump has been pushing to appoint his own picks to the agency's board of governors and this month named three new nominees. Talk of having the Commerce Department take over USPS has quieted over the past year, and Steiner has been clear about where he stands on the agency's future. "I do not believe that the postal service should be privatized or that it should become an appropriated part of the federal government," Steiner said in a video message to USPS employees in July 2025.
Congress previously passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, which eliminated a requirement for USPS to prepay future retiree health benefits and canceled roughly $57 billion in past-due payments — resulting in the only fiscal year in two decades that the agency ended without a financial shortfall. Steiner and lawmakers now face pressure to craft a similarly significant solution before time runs out.