USPS’s Smaller Delivery Misses Came Mostly From Lower Targets; Newer Scores Improved

A smaller miss can conceal slower mail

The Postal Service moved substantially closer to one of its delivery goals in fiscal 2025 without making a comparable improvement in delivery. For single-piece First-Class Mail with a three-to-five-day standard, the shortfall against its target shrank from 17.67 percentage points to 7.24. Our reconstruction of the federal performance table shows that 10.28 points of that 10.43-point change came from lowering the target. The reported on-time result improved by just 0.15 point.

That means 98.6% of the narrowed gap was arithmetic from an easier benchmark, using the annual figures published in the Government Accountability Office’s September 17 report. We checked the fiscal 2024 results and both years’ targets against USPS’s own annual report to Congress, which reports the same figures. The distinction matters to customers and congressional overseers: getting closer to a goal can mean faster service, a less demanding goal, or both.

The two-day category makes the problem clearer. Its target fell from 93% in fiscal 2024 to 87% in fiscal 2025. Its actual result fell too, from 86.44% to 83.19%. The target shortfall nevertheless improved from 6.56 points to 3.81. A six-point target reduction more than offset a 3.25-point decline in the reported share of mail arriving on time.

The newer quarter supplies important counterevidence

The historical calculation does not establish that delivery has kept deteriorating. USPS's own report for April through June 2026 shows two-day single-piece performance of 87.7%, up from 86.0% in the same quarter a year earlier. Three-to-five-day performance reached 88.7%, up from 79.5%. Those are increases in reported results, rather than merely smaller distances from a target.

The spring quarter exceeded the fiscal 2026 annual targets of 87% and 81.5% by 0.7 and 7.2 points, respectively. That is a quarterly comparison against the annual benchmarks, not a finding that USPS met its full-year goals. The quarter also followed weaker two-day readings of 84.7% and 84.1% in the first and second quarters. A full-year score needs the agency's volume-weighted annual calculation; simply averaging the quarterly percentages would not reproduce it.

Even the spring rebound was uneven. USPS reports that 29 districts met or exceeded its two-day benchmark. Its published district rows show New York 1 at 80.8% and Kansas–Missouri at 80.6%, while all six California districts exceeded 90%. These district figures describe postal operating areas and measured mail, not the probability that any particular customer's letter will arrive on time.

Two different ways to relax a delivery promise

The target is the share of mail expected to arrive on time. The service standard is how much time USPS allows. The federal review documents changes to both. In October 2021, USPS extended some expected delivery times as it shifted transportation from air to ground. In April 2025, it eliminated afternoon or end-of-day collection at post offices more than 50 miles from a regional processing center, potentially adding a day to outgoing mail deposited after the morning pickup.

USPS also stopped counting Sundays and federal holidays in the relevant service-standard calculation in April 2025. GAO reported that the Postal Regulatory Commission attributed as much as a 2.1% increase for some products to that calculation change, rather than more efficient service. GAO separately reported USPS's estimate that 19% to 23% of First-Class Mail was excluded from measurement in fiscal 2023 through 2025. Neither figure can simply be subtracted from the newer quarter's scores: the records do not supply the product-level adjustment needed to do that.

There are benefits as well as costs in the record. USPS told GAO that redesigned operations reduced transportation expenses and employee work hours, and that later processing-center implementations avoided the severe disruption experienced at the earliest sites. Some routes received shorter standards. GAO also recorded USPS's explanation that earlier targets were unrealistic and that longstanding financial and operational problems predated its current strategic plan.

The unresolved question is how the gains will last

USPS agreed with GAO's recommendation to explain in its next strategic-plan update the actions it is taking, the effects it expects on service performance, and the obstacles it faces. GAO's public recommendation remained open when checked for this report. The update is planned for 2027. USPS's written response also says statutory and regulatory assistance is necessary to address its broader financial challenges; agreement with a planning recommendation does not mean those problems have been resolved.

For this examination, we calculated each annual shortfall by subtracting the reported result from that year’s target. We then separated the change in the target from the change in the result. Annual figures come from the annual-report series reproduced by GAO and checked against USPS’s fiscal 2024 report; the newer quarter is evaluated against the prior-year quarter published in that same quarterly release. We do not splice annual and quarterly series or treat changes in measured performance as proof that every route became faster. The records distinguish fiscal 2025’s largely easier benchmarks from an agency-reported spring 2026 improvement that remains to be sustained. Reporting method: public-record and performance-table analysis by What’s the Scoop With Broach; agency responses are those published in the records, and no interviews were conducted.