Young People Love the Postal Service Best

Few postal workers were surprised by a recent Gallup Poll that found that Americans rate the Postal Service highest among 13 government agencies – after all, the USPS routinely ranks at the top of such surveys.

But many people were surprised to learn that young people gave the Postal Service the highest rating: 81 percent of 18-29 year olds gave the USPS “excellent or good” marks. “The most curious finding in the poll is who likes USPS most,” the National Journal observed in an article about the survey.

“Pundits have convinced many people that the future of the Postal Service is bleak because young people consider it irrelevant,” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said, “but this poll shows the opposite is true.”

“All age groups gave solid approval ratings to the Postal Service,” Gallup noted, but young people gave the agency the best scores.

Sixty-five percent of respondents over 50 gave the Postal Service “excellent or good” marks, which exceeded the ratings they gave to all other federal government agencies ranked in the survey. Seventy-three percent of women and 70 percent of men rated the USPS as “excellent or good.” The poll, conducted Nov. 11-12, surveyed 1,020 adults in all 50 states by telephone.

“The results of the Gallup Poll demonstrate that the Postal Service is, indeed, a national treasure,” Dimondstein said. “The USPS won high marks, despite efforts by the Postmaster General and Board of Governors to dismantle it, degrade service standards, close mail processing plants, and despite ongoing threats to end Saturday mail delivery,” he said.

“It makes you wonder how much better the results would be if postal management truly embraced its mission and worked to improve rather than cut service.”

The survey results “could be good news for an organization that has been battered by bad publicity for quite some time,” Gallup wrote. Despite its difficulties, “the overall image of the agency has remained remarkably positive,” the polling company said. “This reservoir of goodwill may serve the Postal Service well as it strives to adapt to the changing world in which electronic communication and commerce are rapidly replacing the traditional mailed letter.”

“As the volume of letters has declined, the USPS has evolved to become as much a courier of packages as it is a way to send and receive first-class mail,” Time magazine wrote.

“In this day of rapidly advancing ecommerce, the survey shows that the future of the Postal Service could be very bright,” Dimondstein said.