9 million+ American jobs

$900 billion in commerce

9 percent of the gross domestic product

DEPEND ON MAIL AND PACKAGE DELIVERY

Those numbers are staggering no matter how you look at it.

As we launch thINK Plaza, I had to remind myself of the facts:

• The USPS delivers 212 billion pieces of mail to over 144 million homes, businesses, and Post Office boxes
• The USPS handles more than 44% of the world's card and letter mail volume — delivering more mail to more addresses and to a larger geographic area than any other postal service in the world.
• About 14% of the nation's population moves every year, generating more than 45 million address changes.
  
• There is serious money being exchanged.

Correspondence & transactions — $36 billion
Business advertising — $18.9 billion
Expedited delivery — $5.5 billion
Publications delivery — $2.2 billion
Standard package delivery — $2.2 billion
International mail — $1.8 billion

This industry touches everyone in the United States -- six days a week, sometimes seven. It's not "just mail". It's communication and it makes our world run.

from: Senate Passes Postal Reform Bill by RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer

source: AP Online, February 10, 2006.

via: HighBeam™ Research