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Louis DeJoy is stepping down as Postmaster General, filing notice to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors to start looking for his successor.
DeJoy notified the board Monday morning, but did not indicate when he plans on leaving the agency. He has been Postmaster General since June 2020.
DeJoy’s tenure has been characterized by the national courier’s struggle to turn around its fortunes as part of the 10-year Delivering for America plan instituted in March 2021. But much of the attention throughout the past year went to the Postal Service’s performance as it began its larger network overhaul in early 2024, which was expected to save the delivery firm $5 billion in spending.
Parts of that network consolidation effort were halted in the months after when it became apparent that mail wasn’t being delivered on time in major U.S. markets. Residents in and around cities including Atlanta, Houston and Kansas City, Mo. all shared complaints of late deliveries, putting DeJoy on the hot seat from a Senate committee hearing in April.
That led to the introduction of the Postmaster General Reform Act of 2024 in both the House and Senate last September. This legislation would make the position of Postmaster General subject to a presidential appointment with confirmation required by the U.S. Senate, similar to other administration positions.
Currently, the position is purely appointed by the Postal Service Board of Governors.
In a December audit report, the USPS Office of Inspector General acknowledged the service wasn’t accomplishing the tasks it set out to do with the consolidation, despite an extra $7.1 million in costs among the 15 regions that implemented the Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) initiative.
The initiative is generally designed to reduce the number of transportation trips to and from select post offices and increase the amount of mail transported on each trip.
“We found the Local Transportation Optimization initiative negatively impacted service to customers,” said the audit report. “The service performance scores for First‑Class Mail declined after the implementation of LTO, more significantly impacting the rural population. Additionally, customer complaints about mail delivery delays increased after the LTO implementation. Further, management did not maintain an accurate list of optimized offices, negatively impacting its ability to calculate realized cost savings.”
The USPS’ regulator, the Postal Regulatory Commission, warned a month later that further implementing the plan would result in a service downgrade for nearly 40 percent of single-piece First-Class mail.
While the USPS has never come close to its break-even targets established as part of the Delivering for America plan, it showed recent signs of life in its first 2025 quarter amid $144 million in net income, a massive swing to the black compared with $2.1 billion in losses last year. Revenue increased 4.1 percent to $22.5 billion.
The agency still anticipates ending 2025 with a $6.9 billion net loss, after incurring $9.5 billion in losses in 2024. But controllable losses are expected to nearly halve in the coming year, from $1.8 billion a year ago to an anticipated $1.1 billion now.
In his letter to the board, DeJoy said that the USPS business model has been broken for over two decades, noting that First-Class Mail volume has declined by 80 percent since 1998.
“We still deploy operating practices and adhere to archaic service performance standards as if mail volume was as abundant as it was back in that time,” DeJoy bemoaned.
Among the moves the Postmaster General championed under the Delivering for America plan, DeJoy noted that several would still “take several years to accomplish and to perfect.” This includes scrapping $2 billion in annual transportation costs, as well as $1.5 billion in annual mail processing costs. Additionally, the agency set a goal to reel in $5 billion in revenue each year.
To further cut expenses, USPS is offering early retirement buyouts to mail handlers who work in the agency’s mail processing facilities, as well as other employees who work in a variety of support positions. Eligible employees have until March 7 to accept the early retirement offers, and would agree to retire from the agency effective April 30.
As DeJoy steps aside, President Trump can nominate three members to the vacant seats of the nine-member board, alongside a fourth to replace current board member Ramon Martinez. With four new nominees in play, this can further pave the way for a Trump-favored Postmaster General. The president has floated the idea of privatizing the USPS, which would need congressional approval.
