ORLANDO, Fla. – Sending traditional mail is going to cost you more.
Starting on Sunday, the United States Postal Service is raising the price of postage. A first-class mail Forever stamp now costs 60 cents to purchase, which is up 2 cents per stamp.
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The prices for domestic postcards and sending international letters are also going up.
USPS said the reasons for the price hike are inflation and increased operating expenses.
“To move letters and packages around requires a tremendous amount of fuel, so fueling up all those tractor trailers and mail trucks, planes to move these parcels and letters around has gotten extremely expensive with the price of gas and diesel fuel,” said Dr. Sean Snaith, director of economic forecasting at UCF’s College of Business.
Dr. Snaith said the post office is just the latest victim of record-high inflation and labor market issues.
As we continue to see high prices for gas, food and services, Dr. Snaith said we’re likely on the brink of recession.
“I don’t think it will be a deep one, nothing like 2020, certainly nothing like 2008, 2009, though I do think it could last a year or more,” he said.
Dr. Snaith said as the Fed works to bring down high inflation, the tradeoff is unemployment rates will rise and people could lose their jobs. But he said 11 million job openings across the country could cushion the blow.
“I think businesses can tighten just by eliminating openings before they have to make the more difficult decisions about layoffs,” he said.
Dr. Snaith adds there will be some pain in a recession, but it is the price we have to pay to restore the economy.
“In some ways this will be the bitter medicine that’s going to cure some of these economic aliments that we’ve been facing like high inflation, high gasoline prices, labor market issues; the supply chain will be able to heal as the economy goes into this recession and slows down,” he said.
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