The postmaster normal is accountable for getting billions of items of mail throughout the globe, managing a whole lot of 1000’s of workers and caring for a number of the nation’s most weak Individuals.
The company is presently run by Postmaster Normal Louis DeJoy, who served in President Donald Trump’s first administration and through President Joe Biden’s time period as effectively. He is likely one of the few key advisers to serve in each Trump administrations.
I’m a regulation professor who has studied the US Postal Service and the function of the postmaster normal.
Right here’s what having the job of overseeing the Postal Service entails. Spoiler: It’s about greater than getting your mail delivered.
Sprawling duties of the postmaster
The postmaster normal abroad an enormous operation.
Over 44% of the world’s mail is processed and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, making it the biggest supply service on the planet.
In 2023 alone, the Postal Service dealt with 116.2 billion items of mail. And whereas processing and delivering mail is the important thing part of the Postal Service’s mission, it has different duties as effectively.
In some ways, actually, it’s the nondelivery elements of the group which have the most important influence on the U.S. financial system.
In 2023, USPS owned or leased 22,873 properties across the nation. To position this in perspective, the Normal Companies Administration – generally known as “America’s landlord” – owns or leases solely 8,800 properties.
The company additionally paid US$2 billion in wage and advantages to its 525,469 profession workers and processed greater than 8.5 million passport functions.
Lastly, USPS has a mandate that helps the well being of many Individuals. The service’s “last mile” supply dedication ensures that every one Individuals – even these residing in rural communities – obtain mail supply six days per week. That is significantly vital for folks with out easy accessibility to medical providers, because it typically supplies lifesaving drugs to folks in want.
These are all official duties. Unofficially, the Postal Service has lengthy been identified to help aged residents and reply to emergency conditions that happen on letter carriers’ routes. In early January 2025, for instance, a Massachusetts mail provider was capable of save a home from burning by shortly extinguishing a hearth.
As my co-author Matt Titolo and I’ve written elsewhere, “Americans depend on USPS for a host of essential services including food, medicine, paying bills, shopping, and running small businesses.”
Deep roots in US historical past
That deep reference to communities has been part of USPS since its founding. In actual fact, the postal system is older than the nation itself, with Benjamin Franklin serving as the primary head of the group starting in 1775.
When the U.S. Structure was ratified in 1789, it included Article 1, Part 8 – generally called the postal clause – which explicitly provides Congress the ability “to establish Post Offices and post Roads” and “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to implement the duty.
A light postcard despatched in 1912.
Jena Ardell by way of GettyImages
Till 1971 the postmaster normal was a Cupboard-level place and fifth within the presidential line of succession – coming proper after the legal professional normal and proper earlier than the secretary of the Inside. The postmaster normal was faraway from the Cupboard, and the road of succession, in 1971 when Congress reorganized the Submit Workplace and gave it its new title of the U.S. Postal Service.
Since that reorganization, the president not has the ability to nominate – or fireplace – the postmaster normal. That energy lies with the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, whose members are appointed by the president with the recommendation and consent of the Senate.
The way forward for the Postal Service
Over time, postmaster generals have mentioned transferring USPS away from its roots as a service-oriented group and towards a typical enterprise operation. Presidential candidates, together with Trump, have known as for both full or partial privatization of the company.
Certainly, USPS faces steady deficit issues. However privatization and a ensuing concentrate on earnings would possible enhance the price of mailing a letter, a change that may disproportionately have an effect on low-income people and small companies – and will even lead to service cuts to rural areas, making life for Individuals residing there more durable and fewer wholesome.
As Forbes stories, critics and proponents of the transfer to denationalise acknowledge it may lead to “fewer days of mail services, longer mail delivery timelines or less access to USPS services.”
This story is a part of a sequence of profiles of Cupboard and high-level administration positions.