Why Do Americans Love Their Postal Service?

The United States Postal Service employs approximately 640,469 workers in the United States. In the past year, the number of non-career employees was 115,000, and the number of career employees 525,469. That’s the core of the $1.6 trillion US mailing industry that employs more than 7.3 million people. This makes the Post Office one of the largest civilian employers in the country. Those hundreds of thousands of postal workers all pulled together to deliver medications, checks, food, household products, and other essentials right through the horrendous COVID-19 pandemic – and we are forever grateful.

Even so, some people still don’t seem to comprehend how critical the founding fathers thought the postal service was to the country’s burgeoning democracy.

How critical?

Enough to write the post office into Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which states in Clause 7: “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”

This designates the Post Office as one of the definitive and absolute institutions in American history. And ever since Article I, Section 8 was ordained, government authorities have protected it under the constitution, so it has resisted attempts to dismantle it.

But moving on, why do Americans love their postal service so much? Recent polls reflect a favorable 72% approval rating. The reasons are many, but here are just a few of the most important ones: The folks at the Post Office operate with no taxpayer money, travel thousands of miles to deliver an envelope for less than seventy-five cents, and virtually never shut their operations down.

But the Post Office is not merely symbolic of how a free society should provide essential services to its citizens. It also represents how we need them to protect our very sense of community that makes us a democracy. It is what connects our neighborhoods, districts, villages, towns, hamlets, and cities together – it’s the original social network!

A young postal employee working at a small rural post office in the Midwest was sorting through some envelopes and came across one that was addressed:

GOD

C/O HEAVEN

Upon opening the undeliverable envelope, she found a letter from a little old lady who told God that she had never asked him for anything in her life, but she was desperately in need of $100 to buy Christmas presents for her grandchildren. She wondered if God could send her the money.

Well, the young postal worker was so deeply touched by the letter that she took up a collection among her coworkers to try to raise the $100. After managing to collect $90, she mailed it to the return address on the envelope, feeling pleased for being able to help.

A few weeks passed when another letter came addressed to God from the same little old lady. It read:

"Dear God,

Thank you for the money. I deeply appreciate it. However, I only received $90 of the $100 you sent. Those bandits at the Post Office must have stolen the other $10."

So, decide for yourself if the Post Office deserves your respect and support.

Please share your comments below. We'd love to hear from you, and so would all the great workers at the Post Office.