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Resources for USPS data

Recently, a good question came up at the NALC Leadership Academy about where to find data on the Postal Service. For those who are interested, a lot of information can be found on the websites of the following organizations: the USPS, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), and the USPS Office of Inspector General.

Specifically, the USPS website is where the Postal Service publishes many of its financial reports. A few good reports include:

  • The Form 10K. This report reviews the full fiscal year of Postal Service results; its fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 every year. The report is published annually after the end of every fiscal year, usually around mid-November. 
  • The Financial Conditions & Results (10Q) report. This report reviews the Postal Service’s results over the most recent three month period. It is published a few weeks after the end of the first three fiscal quarters of each year.
  • The Revenue, Pieces & Weight (RPW) reports. These reports are published quarterly and annually. They show the revenue, volume and weight by product (e.g., Single-Piece First-Class Mail) and by product segment (e.g., First-Class Mail).
  • The Integrated Financial Plan. This report is published annually around the same time as the Form 10-K. It provides the Postal Service’s forecast for the following fiscal year.

The Postal Regulatory Commission website is where the preliminary monthly financial results reports are published. These are good reports that provide information on the Postal Service’s performance during the most recent month, and break out the “Controllable Operating Income/(Loss)” from the non-operational items. They are usually published toward the end of the month for the prior month’s results. Look for reports titled “USPS Preliminary Financial Information.” For example, here is a link to the August 2014 report (11 months of 2014). If you like, you can sign-up to get alerts for when new PRC reports are published.

The USPS Office of Inspector General website has reports on a wide variety of postal subjects. For example, if you wanted to find the OIG’s report on non-bank financial services, you could find it on this website. Here is the link to this report. Like the PRC website, the USPS OIG website lets you sign-up for alerts about new reports.

There are plenty of other great sources of information about the Postal Service, including postal-specific news websites and blogs. The sites above just reflect a few of the major official sources of data and financial information about the Postal Service.

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