• by Ray Schultz , September 22, 2024

The postal rate-making system for periodicals is “flawed and should be modified,” the News/Media Alliance has written in a letter to the Postal Regulatory Commission. 

The Alliance demands that the PRC eliminate the non-compensatory surcharge because it has failed to balance the goal “of improving cost coverage with maintaining stability and predictability in rates.”

The Alliance reiterated its opposition to “the grave harm inflicted on publishers by twice yearly rate increases totaling a cumulative 254 percent of inflation coupled with reduced service and unconstrained costs.”

It adds, “Periodicals volume has plummeted by 25 percent in the years that rates have been set under the current system, while per-unit Periodicals costs have risen, service standards have been reduced, and service performance is poor.”