First-class stamps: getting your two-cents’ worth
The price of a first-class postage stamp rose 2 cents today (unless you stocked up on “Forever Stamps” ahead of time). I’ve always thought a first-class stamp was one of the modern era’s great bargains. Or at least I thought so until I read this article from Georg Jensen.
Just as General Motors has in effect subsidized Big Oil by continuing to build gas-guzzlers in recent years, so has the USPS continued to subsidize Big Mail by shaping its operations to encourage what it now calls, revealingly, “standard mail”—that is, advertising junk mail. Most American citizens are blissfully unaware of the degree to which USPS subsidizes U.S. businesses by means of the fees it collects from ordinary postal customers. For example, if you wish to mail someone a large envelope weighing three ounces, you’ll pay $1.17 in postage. A business can bulk-mail a three-ounce catalog of the same size for as little as $0.14.
The price of a first-class stamp has risen a bit faster than the rate of inflation, but it tracks fairly well. A look at the consumer price index calculator at the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 44 cents today has the same spending power as 4 cents in 1919. But a first-class stamp in 1919 cost only 2 cents.
To look at it from the other direction, a first-class stamp that cost 2 cents in 1919 would cost 25 cents today based solely on the rate of inflation. The 3-cent stamp, which originated in 1932, is roughly equivalent to a cost of 47 cents today.
A first-class stamp hit the 10-cent mark in 1974, which is equivalent to 43 cents in 2009.
A look at stamp prices between 1919 to present.
Year — Postage, per ounce
1919 — 2 cents
1932 — 3 cents
1958 — 4 cents
1963 — 5 cents
1968 — 6 cents
1971 — 8 cents
1974 — 10 cents
1975 — 13 cents
1978 — 15 cents
1981 — 18 cents (March)
1981 — 20 cents (November)
1985 — 22 cents
1988 — 25 cents
1991 — 29 cents
1995 — 32 cents
1999 — 33 cents
2001 — 34 cents
2002 — 37 cents
2006 — 39 cents
2007 — 41 cents
2008 — 42 cents
2009 — 44 cents
Source: U.S. Postal Service
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
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