Nick Loomis, a reporter with The Midwest Newsroom, rides along with Nebraska mail carrier Roger McDonald in the spring of 2025 as part of Loomis’ reporting on the future of the United States Postal Service.
As a new Postmaster General with ties to FedEx assumes control of the agency, postal workers and their customers are bracing for either scenario, especially as corporate America weighs in.
Under the universal service obligation, which mandates mail delivery to every address in the country, a rural letter carrier will drive more than 700 miles to serve those two households in a normal year. “It’s never going to make financial sense,” said McDonald, 61, from the driver’s seat of his preferred delivery vehicle, a Dodge Caravan. “But that’s a big reason why the universal pricing system was generated. Because we knew we had to service every American’s home, not just the Americans’ homes that provide us a profit.”
