There’s a handful of old mailboxes clustered on a long county road in southeastern Missouri. One of them belongs to Kyla Estes, whose house is about a mile and a half away. It’s a long drive to their mailbox, but it’s even further to the nearest towns.
“We're about five miles from Marquand, probably 15 miles from Patton. I mean we're out here in the middle of nowhere,” she said with a laugh.
Estes is a third generation farmer who shares cattle with her parents and siblings on 800 acres. She and her husband love living in the country with their two young daughters.
But living in a remote area has its challenges.
The post offices in the nearest towns are only open four hours a day on weekdays and just one hour on Saturdays. Estes said it’s also taking longer for mail and packages to arrive – if they arrive at all.
“I ordered a dress for my daughter's Christmas concert and she didn't get it in time,” she said.
The U.S. Postal Service’s future remains a huge question mark, with rural service hanging in the balance.
President Donald Trump has talked of privatizing the service, potentially bringing it under the Department of Commerce. Proponents cite the agency’s $87 billion in financial losses over the past 14 years, along with its performance issues. A task force that studied privatization during the president’s first term warned rural postal service would suffer.
At the same time, a plan to consolidate the postal service and save money also is expected to negatively impact rural delivery.
Estes, who feels that rural communities are being left behind either way, said she would prefer the USPS not be privatized – unless it would mean faster mail service.
“There's some major things there that need to be addressed as far as getting rural America our mail in a timely fashion,” she said.
Cutbacks for rural communities
In 2021, the USPS announced a 10-year plan dubbed “Delivering for America” that was meant to address many of the agency’s challenges. Led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who announced in February that he would resign, the plan sought to address systemic performance issues and yearly financial losses.
To that end, the USPS announced it would invest billions of dollars into its infrastructure, including mail processing facilities and equipment, as well as upgrades to technology systems and its truck fleet. While the larger plan has mostly moved forward, there are more changes on the way.
Among the upcoming proposals at the USPS is the “Regional Transportation Optimization” plan. Officials have estimated it could save more than $3 billion by consolidating operations. To do this, the USPS would end afternoon mail collections at post offices more than 50 miles from regional hubs, such as Kansas City, St. Louis, Des Moines, and Omaha.
That plan has drawn opposition since its announcement, including from the American Postal Workers Union and its Iowa chapter president, Kimberly Karol. She said workers are already struggling to do their job effectively.
“There's a growing concern amongst the employees all across the state that rural communities are going to be harmed by these changes,” Karol said. “We've already seen a slow down in delivery in the state, a gross slow down. It's just mind boggling.”
Karol represents about 900 small post offices in Iowa. If postal services are cut back in rural communities, she said she worries there could be a negative impact to local economies, especially where agriculture is crucial.
“I really do fear for the survival of small towns in the United States, especially in Iowa. Some of them are holding on by a thread right now. And the thing that is keeping them in existence is the fact that they have a postal service,” Karol said.
It’s not just workers and customers who are taking issue with the proposal. In recent months, elected officials have been highly critical of the USPS’ direction. Many have criticized delays in their communities, and have called for greater oversight. In January, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Missouri re-introduced the “Pony Up Act” — a bill that would allow customers to seek reimbursement for any fees accrued from late postal deliveries.
“Folks expect their mail to show up on time, six days a week. Instead, they are constantly faced with late deliveries and it’s costing people money,” said Congressman Sam Graves in a press release. “If the Postal Service isn’t going to get the mail out of the processing center and to the mailbox on time, then they should pony up and pay the late fee.”
Yet, one of the most thorough critiques of DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” plan came in late January with the release of the Postal Regulatory Commission’s advisory opinion, which is required by law with any proposed changes to national services. After months of review, the independent agency’s nearly 300 page long opinion found that the proposal is problematic for three reasons. They said the plan is not financially viable, the modeling is flawed, and that it will have negative impacts on rural communities.
“There's an obligation,” said Tom Day, a member of the Postal Regulatory Commission who was appointed by President Joe Biden. “The Postal Service really has to make itself accessible to those 330 million people.”
The report found that rural communities won’t get first-class mail — the kind most commonly used by businesses and households — delivered for six or more days as a result of the decreased afternoon collections. Day, who spent 35 years working for the post office all the way to the executive level, said he agrees that the USPS must change in order to survive, but not at the expense of rural customers.
“I am critical not because it's having a problem and I want to see it fail. I'm critical because I want to see it succeed. And right now, it's headed in the wrong direction,” Day said.
Moving forward
Still, Postmaster General DeJoy has continued to defend the plan. At a meeting for the USPS board of governors in February, DeJoy pushed back on the advisory opinion and said his plan will save USPS almost $4 billion dollars.
“The persistent failure by the PRC and others to confront and embrace the type of change that is critical for the financial viability of the postal service has directly led to our near destruction,” DeJoy said. “It is time for us to act before it is too late to save the postal service.”
Despite announcing his resignation in mid-February, along with reports that President Trump is looking to absorb the USPS into the Department of Commerce, DeJoy has asked that his replacement move forward with the plan.
Currently, the “Regional Transportation Optimization” plan is slated to begin in two phases, starting on April 1 and then again on July 1.
Nick Levendofsky, the executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, has major reservations about what will happen in rural Kansas.
“It is a service to the American people, and we expect that service, and we don't want to see continued cuts and consolidations made,” he said.
The Kansas Farmers Union, which represents about 4,000 farmers and ranchers, had previously called on DeJoy to be removed. Now that DeJoy is resigning, Levendofsky said he hopes that whoever fills the position will ignore DeJoy’s plans in favor of servicing all communities, including those in rural America.
In the meantime, others are eyeing the potential privatization of USPS.
Brian Renfroe is president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, an organization that represents more than 295,000 active and retired postal workers in the U.S.
On March 23, his organization is hosting rallies at local branches around the country, including in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Their goal, he said, is to raise public awareness and push back against privatization. Renfroe said that such changes would disproportionately impact rural customers and workers too.
"Any form of privatization of even a part of the work that the postal service does is inevitably going to lead to a degradation or, eventually, dismantling what we believe is a really key portion of what we do," said Renfroe. "And that is, that we provide universal service to everyone in this country, all 50 states, all U .S. territories, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands for the same price, no matter where they live."
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
