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Americans Back Five-Day-Per-Week Mail Delivery
Politics

Americans Back Five-Day-Per-Week Mail Delivery

Prefer that option to government funding for postal service, higher stamp prices

by Lymari Morales

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the U.S. Postal Service officially takes steps toward a reduced, five-day delivery schedule to help solve its financial problems, Gallup finds that 68% of Americans favor such a move -- easily more than would like to see government funding for the postal service, higher stamp prices, or the closing of their local post office branches.

Percentages of Americans Who Favor or Oppose Various Moves to Help Postal Service Solve Its Financial Problems

Views on this issue are little changed from last year, save for Americans' becoming slightly more supportive of reducing the number of days post offices are open -- their preferred option overall. The March 16, 2010, Gallup poll was conducted just before the Postal Service's official request this week that the independent Postal Regulatory Commission provide an opinion on dropping Saturday delivery. The Postal Service says the move would save more than $3 billion per year.

Americans may not object to reduced mail delivery in part because they are more likely to send e-mails than letters in the mail (67% vs. 53%) -- although they are still more likely to pay bills by mail than online (66% vs. 47%).

Have You or Have You Not Done Each of the Following (Regarding Postal Mail and Electronic Communication)?

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 999 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 16, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Polls conducted entirely in one day, such as this one, are subject to additional error or bias not found in polls conducted over several days.


Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/127013/Americans-Back-Five-Day-Per-Week-Mail-Delivery.aspx
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