Cash-Crunched USPS Suspends Nonessential Spending

The Postal Service cuts include hiring, traveling, even paper clips.

Postmaster General David Steiner, here at a 2025 celebration of the Postal Service’s 250th anniversary, froze agency spending this week. Photo: USPS

The United States Postal Service is so broke, it’s stamping “Return to Sender” on anything it deems nonessential.

Postmaster General David Steiner ordered the cost clampdown in a Tuesday memorandum: “To protect core operations and ensure we can continue meeting all essential obligations, we are implementing immediate restrictions on non-essential spending across all departments.”

A USPS spokesman tells The Washington Star the memo “was sent to all USPS Officers” as part of “additional/continued self-help actions” to “address our ongoing financial crisis.” The agency has reported $120 billion in net losses since 2007.