Not So Fast

USPS Won’t Close Rural Outposts

Will instead cut hours of 13,000 small-town facilities.

Small-town America will still get its mail after all. The U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday that it was backtracking on a previously announced plan to close some 13,000 rural post offices, instead saying that it will cut hours at the facilities to save $500 million a year. The cuts received major backlash when announced, forcing the USPS to go with a different plan—keeping post offices open for just two hours, six days a week, shifting thousands of employees from full-time to part-time work. Small communities will have the option of keeping their outpost open as a “village post office” run by a private company, or closing it completely. Officials expect most towns to choose the former.