Plan for the next USPS Price Change: July 2022

September 23, 2021
Carolyn Angelini
News, Policy, Uncategorized, US Postal Service

On September 15^th the USPS announced that the next Market Dominant Rate Adjustment will be July of 2022 and that they intend on adjusting rates every six months from that point forward.

For planning purposes mailers may want to update their budgets for increases in postage rates as follows:

Estimate of 5.5-6.5% increases in rates for:

First-Class Mail
USPS Marketing Mail Non-Carrier Route Letters and High-Density/Saturation Mail (Most Nonprofit Letter mail falls into this category)

Estimate of 7.5-8.5% increases in rates for:

USPS Marketing Mail Flats (Applies also to many Nonprofit Flats)
Periodicals
Package Services
USPS Marketing Mail Carrier Route
USPS Marketing Mail Parcels

Other details to keep in mind around the new Rate Adjustment Schedule:

We shouldn’t expect another adjustment to Market Dominant rates (the ones most important to Nonprofits) between the one that occurred on Aug 29th and July 2022.
These estimates may change between now and April when the USPS files for the July ’22 rate adjustment because CPI and some of the surcharges are still fluid.
Beginning January 2023, Market Dominant price adjustments will occur twice a year, (e.g. January 2023, July 2023, January 2024, July 2024, etc.).
Under this schedule we can expect larger increases in July of each year (similar to the estimates for July ’22) which will be based on six months of CPI plus the retirement, density, and non-compensatory class authorities and any remaining unused rate authority.
The increases in January of each year will be smaller and will be based on six months of CPI, plus any unused rate authority not used in prior rate adjustments. January 2023 is a bit far off for a solid projection but those looking to plug a figure into their budgets should plan for a 2.5-3.5% increase.
The USPS will file in April 2022 for the July 2022 rate adjustment so that’s when we would know more concretely what the percentages will be. The filling will occur in October 2022 for the January 2023 rate adjustments. It appears this would be the schedule on-going.
There has been no indication as to what day of the month the USPS would file for the rate adjustments or the actual implementation dates so we suggest mailers budget for the adjustments to take place the 1st of the month, until we know more.