Absurd claims.
U.S. GAO - U.S. Postal Service: Action Needed to Address Unfunded Benefit Liabilities
GAO has previously reported that without congressional action to address USPS's benefit funding issues and better align its costs and revenues, USPS faces continuing low liquidity levels, insufficient revenues to make annual prefunding payments, and increasing liabilities. Deferring funding could increase costs for future postal ratepayers and increase the possibility that USPS may not be able to pay for these costs. GAO has previously identified the following key considerations related to USPS's funding of its benefits liabilities:
• Reasons for prefunding include fairly allocating costs between current and future ratepayers, protecting USPS's future viability, providing greater benefit security to employees and retirees, and protecting potential third parties.
• Prefunding decisions involve trade-offs between USPS's current financial condition and its long-term prospects.
• Congress needs to modify USPS's retiree health prefunding payments in a fiscally responsible manner, and USPS should prefund any unfunded retiree- health benefits liability to the maximum extent that its finances permit.
• Lowering the retiree health funding target from 100 to 80 percent would have the effect of carrying a permanent unfunded liability.
• USPS liabilities are estimated using assumptions for the federal workforce as a whole, rather than USPS-specific assumptions. GAO supports the use of the most accurate actuarial assumptions available, and if USPS-specific assumptions are used, that they be recommended by an independent body.
Why GAO Did This Study
USPS continues to be in a serious financial crisis, with insufficient revenue to cover its expenses and financial obligations as the volume of USPS's most profitable product, First-Class Mail, continues to decline. At the end of fiscal year 2013, USPS had about $100 billion in unfunded liabilities: $85 billion in unfunded liabilities for benefits, including retiree- health, pension, and workers' compensation liabilities, and $15 billion in outstanding debt to the U.S. Treasury—the statutory limit. These unfunded liabilities are a large and growing financial burden, increasing from 83 percent of USPS revenues in fiscal year 2007 to 148 percent of revenues in fiscal year 2013. Unfunded benefit liabilities represent estimated future benefit payments to current and retired employees for which USPS has not set aside sufficient money to pay. This testimony discusses (1) the extent to which USPS's benefit liabilities are unfunded and (2) the potential impacts of USPS's unfunded benefit liabilities absent action by Congress to address them and key policy issues for consideration. This testimony is based primarily on GAO's work over the past 4 years and updated USPS financial information for fiscal year 2013.
