Postal Facts [Universal Access. Universal Service] We deliver to every household in the United States and every American has access to our services. Based on 1999 statistics, we . . . Deliver mail to 134 million delivery addresses, including 20 million post office boxes. About 1 million new addresses are added each year. Carry more mail to more people over a larger geographic area than any other country. Serve 7 million customers daily at one of 38,000 postal retail outlets. Accept billions in credit/debit card payments annually ($3.4 billion in 1999). Have an annual operating revenue of $63 billion. Deposit $350 million daily in retail cash receipts. Provide stamps through the internet, by mail, phone, Automatic Teller Machines (ATMS) and at more than 21,000 private retail outlets. Collect mail from more than 312,000 street mail collection boxes. Employ 797,795 career employees, including 48,478 employees with disabilities and 251,725 veterans. Invest billions of dollars annually in new or improved buildings and mail processing equipment. ($3 billion in 1999). Lease more than 27,000 facilities at a cost of $727 million a year, providing tax revenue to thousands of communities. Pay $1.6 billion in employee salaries and benefits every two weeks. [Mail is big business] Three of the Postal Service's six product lines would qualify as Fortune 500 companies: Correspondence & transactions a $34.9 billion business Business advertising a $14.4 billion business Expedited delivery a $5.5 billion business Publications delivery a $2.1 billion business Standard package delivery a $1.8 billion business International mail a $1.6 billion business The private mailing industry nationwide generates $155 billion/year (excluding postage) and employs 6.2 million people. [The gateway to the household] Our national distribution network and infrastructure gives us access to every American household. We . . Handle 46% of the world's card and letter mail volume. Deliver more than 200 billion pieces of mail a year. Transport mail by airplane (15,000 commercial airline flights/daily) truck, railroad, boat and even by mule to/from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Pay billions a year primarily for air and highway transportation costs. ($4 billion in 1999). Operate a transport and delivery fleet of 202,000 vehicles driving 1.1 billion miles a year. Deliver per carrier about 2,300 pieces of mail a day to 500 addresses. Use the latest automation technology to increase productivity and reduce costs. Avoided about $15 billion in labor costs since 1987 because of investments in letter automation. Project 80% of handwritten letters will be computer "read" by 2001. Are the largest investor in Optical Character Reader technology. Barcodes are now on 88% of all letter mail resulting in greater processing efficiency. Are replacing manual sorting and loading of trays for transportation with robotic applications. 100 Robotic Containerization Systems were funded in 1999. [A relationship built on trust] The U.S. Mail is perhaps the most visible and personal of all federal services. People know they can trust the U.S. Mail. Additionally, postal employees are a part of the neighborhoods they serve and make significant contributions to their communities. A poll conducted by the Louis Harris organization gave the U.S. Mail the highest security rating above phones, faxes, email and the Internet. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service responsible for investigating criminal acts involving the mails, thus assuring postal customers of the "sanctity of the seal" when entrusting their money, messages and merchandise to the mails. In 1999, Postal Inspectors arrested 10,388 criminal suspects for postal crimes, including mail theft, mail fraud, robbery, and prohibited mailings of drugs, bombs & child pornography. Service performance for on-time local delivery of First-Class Mail ended 1999 at 93%. Nearly 93% of the nation's households also rated their overall satisfaction with the Postal Service as excellent, very good or good. It is estimated that 17% of the nation's population moves every year. Resulted in 44 million change-of-address cards in 1999. We forward over 2 billion pieces of mail a year, at no charge. More than 300 Postal Customer Councils meet regularly with postal management. The Postal Service is a major partner in the crusade to identify marrow donors to assist patients suffering from a life-threatening blood disease. More than 8,000 postal employees, have been added to the national registry of potential marrow donors. Postal employees pledged $39 million to the 1999 Combined Federal Campaign. The Postal Service is recognized as a leader in efforts to make the world a safer and cleaner place and has received numerous environmental awards for its practices, including the United Nations Award for Environmental Excellence in 1999. We: Operate the nation's largest fleet of alternative-fueled vehicles (AFV) operating on clean fuels such as compressed natural gas and electricity. By 2002, the AFV fleet will grow to nearly 30,000 vehicles. Recycled nearly one million tons of wastepaper, cardboard, plastics, cans and other material in 1999, resulting in less landfill material and $10 million in revenue. Purchase more than $160 million worth of products with recycled content, including pallets and trays, stamp products and mailing envelopes. Working with ADVO to reunite families, the "Have You Seen Me" detached direct mail card has led to the safe recovery of 99 missing children. The nation's largest one-day food drive, sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers, has raised over 328.1 million pounds of food to feed the hungry since the annual nationwide effort began in 1993. Many postage stamps have helped raise awareness of social issues. Sales of the semi-postal breast cancer research stamp also raised revenues for research - nearly $10 million by the end of 1999. [And, we're a dot com] The U.S. Postal Service understands the importance of the growing electronic economy, and the convenience of the Internet. We will incorporate the protection and integrity Americans value in hardcopy mail with the convenience and speed of e-commerce. [www.usps.com], the Postal Service website, averages 3 million visits per month. USPS™eBillPay offers customers a central, secure online site for bill-paying transactions. Stamps Online offers stamps and related products via the Internet and generated $5.8 million in 1999. During the first 6 months of fiscal 2000, internet stamp sales totaled $12 million. Returns @ease™, an electronic merchandise return service, provides prepaid mailing labels via the Internet for convenient return of catalog and online purchases. PC Postage™ is postage that can be downloaded from a personal computer and printed onto an envelope or mailing label. Three vendors are certified by the Postal Service. The Postal Service is a leader in the issuance of digital certificates, providing proof to individuals involved in an electronic transaction, such as PC Postage, that the person they are doing business with is who they claim to be. USPS Electronic Postmark is the application of a trusted time and date stamp to an electronic message. (Last updated April 2000)