Stamp Price Increase – E-Mail Looks Better and Better

By Gilbert Falso :: 6:19 AM

With the price of postage set to go up later this month, sending an e-mail and paying bills online rather than forking out the additional cash for stamps probably looks better and better to many Americans.

On January 27, the price of a First-Class stamp will cost 46 cents, up a penny from the current rate for a 1-ounce letter. Stamps for postcards will also go up 1 cent, to 33 cents.

Also new this year as part of the U.S. Postal Service’s rate increase, is a First-Class Global Forever stamp, which pays the postage to mail a letter anywhere in the world at a flat rate of $1.10.

Prices will also be raised on the Postal Service’s package rates. The Flat Rate Priority Mail will now have boxes starting at $5.80 and envelopes starting at $5.60.

What many people don’t realize about the U.S. Postal Service is that it receives no taxpayer dollars. The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 that created the current United States Postal Service formed it as an independent agency, and it has not received any taxpayer assistance since 1982. The Postal Service relies on the sale of postage and mail products and services for revenue to cover their costs.

The post office is seeing some electronic competition. In 2012, the number of emails sent and received per day totaled 89 billion. This figure  is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 13% over the next four years, reaching over 143 billion by year-end 2016, according to data collected from The Radicati Group, a technology market research firm.