WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter Wednesday to Postmaster General Megan Brennan requesting weekly revenue reports from the United States Postal Service.
Chairman Johnson wrote, “Despite recent media reports suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically hurt USPS, the revenue data provided to my staff for the first five weeks of the crisis shows a different story. From March 16, 2020, through April 19, 2020, revenues for USPS were down 5.86 percent compared with similar dates last year. That was a far cry from the 30 percent that USPS had been publicly projecting. Although I have yet to receive official data to confirm this, my understanding is that USPS revenues have recently improved—so much so that this April’s revenues were close to equal to those in April 2019.”
Full text of the letter is below, and it can also be viewed here.
May 6, 2020
The Honorable Megan Brennan
Postmaster General
United States Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza SW
Washington D.C. 20260
Dear Postmaster General Brennan:
I write to request that you provide me with weekly updates on the revenue of the United States Postal Service (USPS) during the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 24, your staff provided the weekly revenue for the first five weeks of the crisis, but has since withheld the information.
Despite recent media reports suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically hurt USPS, the revenue data provided to my staff for the first five weeks of the crisis shows a different story. From March 16, 2020, through April 19, 2020, revenues for USPS were down 5.86 percent compared with similar dates last year. That was a far cry from the 30 percent that USPS had been publicly projecting. Although I have yet to receive official data to confirm this, my understanding is that USPS revenues have recently improved—so much so that this April’s revenues were close to equal to those in April 2019.
The significant difference between USPS’s worst-case scenario projections and reality illustrates why it is critical that USPS be fully transparent with, and provide weekly data to, policymakers. To that end, I ask that you please provide my staff with the weekly revenue from April 19 to present, and continue to provide such data on a weekly basis for the foreseeable future.
I appreciate your commitment to an important organization that many Americans rely upon, and I am grateful to the postal carriers across the country who continue to deliver goods and mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly, or have your staff contact Patrick Bailey of my staff at 202-224-4751.
Sincerely,
Ron Johnson
Chairman