U.S. Postal Service reports fiscal year 2021 results, reduces annual loss

The U.S. Postal Service announced its financial results for the 2021 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, reporting an adjusted loss of $6.9 billion for 2021, compared to an adjusted loss of $7.6 billion for 2020. This excludes non-cash workers’ compensation adjustments for the impacts of actuarial revaluation and discount rate changes, which are outside of management’s control. On a U.S. generally accepted accounting principles basis, the Postal Service had a net loss of $4.9 billion for 2021, compared to a net loss of $9.2 billion for 2020.

The Postal Service’s operating revenue was $77.0 billion for 2021, an increase of $3.9 billion, or 5.3 percent, compared to the prior year.

“We are aggressively implementing our Delivering for America transformation plan and making solid progress in service and operational performance, and in enterprise-wide automation investments that have dramatically expanded our capacity to process and deliver holiday package volume for the nation,” said Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General and CEO. “Despite the magnitude of our financial challenges, we are making encouraging progress in correcting the long-term imbalance in postal revenues and expenses, and we expect to see continued improvement as we fully implement the Delivering for America plan, which includes making meaningful progress towards meeting or exceeding 95 percent on-time service performance for all mail and shipping products, which we will achieve once all the elements of the plan are implemented.”

Shipping and Packages revenue increased $3.5 billion, or 12.2 percent, on volume growth of 253 million pieces, or 3.5 percent, largely driven by the surge in e-commerce resulting from the pandemic and record holiday volume. This surge has begun to abate as the economy continues to recover and market competition intensifies; however, Shipping and Packages volume remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Marketing Mail revenue increased $681 million, or 4.9 percent, compared to the prior year, on volume growth of approximately 2.2 billion pieces, or 3.4 percent. Marketing Mail experienced steep volume declines at the onset of the pandemic last year.