NNA celebrates limits on postage increases

Jan 14, 2026

A step forward in the National Newspaper Association’s postal policy yesterday brought a sigh of relief to an industry that has suffered from declining postal service and escalating prices to mail newspapers. The Postal Regulatory Commission rapped the US Postal Service Board of Governors on the knuckles for its aggressive price increase and limited future hikes to once a year.

The PRC, which has authority from Congress to set out the levels of possible rate increases, took its action after petitions from numerous mailing organizations, including NNA to rein in aggressive price increases. NNA’s leadership has met with PRC numerous times to lay out the details of damaging postage pricing and declining service.

The Commission’s order on Jan. 13 expressed its dismay that USPS had so aggressively “exhausted” the limits of postage increase authority provided in 2022 after the PRC changed the boundaries previously set by inflation-based price caps in 2006.

The new order, however, did not trim the Postal Service’s ability to enact sizeable postage increases.

NNA Postal Committee Chair Matt Paxton, publisher of The News-Gazette in Lexington, Virginia, said that not having to adjust postage rates in July and January each year, as USPS has required recently, would help publishers avoid some disruption.

“Unfortunately,” Paxton said, “the PRC has not pulled back the amounts USPS can seek from its financially-strapped mailers. Instead of two smaller increases and all of the cost and disruption entailed there, USPS now can do one large increase a year. This may seem like jumping out of the fire into the frying pan. But I think the fact that the PRC is listening to us is an encouraging sign.”

The PRC also limited USPS’s ability to pass along pricing discounts for worksharing — like presorting mail or dropping it at local facilities — that are out of sync with the amount of money actually saved by the system. NNA has pointed out that its mail does not get full credit for all of the work-sharing publishers are doing in today’s environment.

“I am gratified that our postal team has scored a victory, “NNA Chair Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, publisher, The San Fernando (California) Valley Sun, said. “We invest a lot of our members’ investments into trying to get fair treatment in the mail. In fact, our delegation was in Washington on the day of this decision working with USPS on improving mail service. The entire postal system is threatened with the financial losses we see today. Finding ways to encourage businesses to bring more mail to USPS rather than driving them away with gargantuan price hikes is a good way to begin. We applaud the PRC’s work and pledge that NNA will continue to push for improvements.”