The United States Postal Service has been no match for the current chaos of shipping delays, which threaten the on-time delivery of Christmas gifts for many Americans. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more people are shopping online this year: On Cyber Monday, for example, shoppers spent $10.8 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, setting a record for the largest US online shopping day in history. Amazon urged customers to order gifts in advance this year, fearing an overload of orders would affect their delivery capabilities. That’s borne out in long lines, untrackable packages, and delayed mail across the country.
This build-up has been a long time coming: With the focus earlier in the year on mail-in ballots, resources were largely devoted to the presidential election, leaving other postal issues overlooked. As Adam Clark Estes previously reported for Recode, this year has been a rocky one for the USPS as a whole. The postal system has been in serious trouble for a while now — a push toward privatization by President Donald Trump, coupled with cost-cutting from Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who was appointed in May, has put the USPS at serious risk this year. While the Postal Service is required to run new policies by the Postal Regulatory Commission, DeJoy failed to do so, resulting in over 7 percent of first-class mail being delayed within the first five weeks of the changes.
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