That requirement was repealed in 2022. The USPS still isn't profitable. While it reaped the benefit of that repeal and reported only a small loss in 2022, it reported much larger losses in 2023 and 2024, comparable to its loss in 2021 (when the requirement was still in effect).
If I'm not mistaken, they still carry the debt they acquired to pre-fund, and still spend about $10B on retirement benefits each year.
But to me, none of that really matters, because I don't believe a government entity should be turning a profit on me, because then it is a tax. So I want the USPS running at a loss (pulling from appropriations as needed), but as close to breakeven as possible. If it ever pulls a profit, I expect prices to drop in accordance.
If you see it as a tax, and the tax funds the service, and you like the service, why wouldn't you want to pay it?
About half of their liabilities were forgiven as part of the 2022 legislation. They still have debt and retirement liabilities, but those are more in line with other large services (private or public) now. However, they've each increased over 20% per year since 2022, which is quite a lot.
Personally, I would like to see a return of postal banking, in which case the postal service would pay out its profit to its accountholders.
