Postal Service Dragging Its Feet on Fixing Periodicals

Postal officials, who frequently complain about losing money on Periodicals mail, bear much of the blame for that loss, according to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

“The Commission is increasingly concerned that the Postal Service’s Periodicals pricing strategy is leading to inefficient mailer preparation,” the commission wrote recently in its review of 2013 postal rates, echoing a complaint that magazines have been making for the past decade.

The Postal Service’s flawed accounting shows that it receives only 76 cents in Periodicals-class revenue for every dollar it spends delivering magazines and newspapers. That was an improvement of 4 cents over the previous year