Congress regulates our retail/service prices and not much more. The post office is forced to keep prices lower than competitors, but we operate only on revenue and zero taxes, and not allowed to make a profit. Best thing they could do would be to let the post office be competitive in the market if you want to see wages rise. Although they're pretty good, I'm only five years in and make 70k per year plus benefits and 5% matching for the gov equivalent of a 401k.

The Federal government has struggled with staffing for years, it’s not just the Postal Service. USPS, USCIS, CBP, BOP, BP and TSA all have staffing problems for a variety of reasons, the most common being starting pay and terrible hours. I’m sure there’s more administrations that are hurting these are just the ones that I know about. So it’s common to be forced to do mandatory overtime which most people don’t want to do and this leads to more people quitting which leads to more mandatory overtime.

Most people would prefer a 9-to-5 job even if it pays a little less and don’t want to work weekends or mandatory overtime. Plus the Postal Service is stuck delivering heavy packages now because of the prevalence of Amazon, they’re doing more work for the same pay. I know a few part time mail carriers and they also have to worry about crazy rural people pulling guns on them despite them obviously delivering mail and getting yelled at by people because “they aren’t working hard enough.”

Also the postal jeeps don’t have functional heaters or any AC so it’s a real shit job for 7 months out of the year. So unless you’re willing to work extra hours, give up your Saturday and drive around freezing or sweating through your shorts maybe understand why people don’t want to do this job. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel like driving an ancient, heavy rear wheel drive jeep with all seasons and no functional heater in winter.