The Consumer Price Index (CPI) price cap on annual United States Postal Service (USPS) postage increases has been in place for over a decade. It is THE most important determinant of how much the cost of mailing escalates. The CPI cap protects captive mailers from pricing abuse by the monopoly USPS. The price cap is applied to each major class of mail: First Class Mail, Marketing Mail, Special Services, and Periodicals. Individual rates can vary from the cap as long as the weighted average of all price increases within a class does not exceed the amount allowable under the PRC rules and the law. If the USPS decides to impose a wide range of price changes, then your individual rates could change a lot more or less than the cap.

Because the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) adopted its own methodology of applying the CPI to postage, it is important to monitor their calculations of both the cap and any remaining unused price capacity the USPS can add to the CPI.

To view recent trend data showing 12-month average change in CPI-U for planning purposes and explanation of how CPI-U is calculated, go to www.prc.gov, hover over REFERENCES, and click on CPI FIGURES.

(These statistics are updated monthly, after the release of latest CPI)

To learn more about the Consumer Price Index, visit the Bureau of Labor & Statistics HERE.