The U.S. Postal Service has announced plans to cut mail delivery on Saturdays and that could overly burden rural Americans, especially senior citizens.
Rhonda Perry is program director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. She concedes that the proposal could have been worse. Perry tells Brownfield Ag News, "I do think that there were earlier proposals that could have been even more damaging."
The Postal Service says it would save about $2 Billion a year by delivering packages-only on Saturdays. It would maintain its Monday through Friday delivery of ALL mail items.
Perry says there are a high number of senior citizens in rural areas who don't have internet access and rely on postal delivery of medications through the VA system, "All of those things really add up in terms of a slowdown for people in terms of getting their mail and even critical medicines and medications, so we are concerned that this will have an inordinate effect on rural communities."
It's unclear whether the postal proposal needs Congressional approval. The postal service says its new schedule would begin in early August 2013.
Source: brownfieldagnews.com