WASHINGTON (AP) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy plans to cut 10,000 workers and billions of dollars from the U.S. Postal Service budget and he’ll do that working with Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to a letter sent to members of Congress on Thursday.
DOGE will assist USPS with addressing “big problems” at the $78 billion-a-year agency, which has sometimes struggled in recent years to stay afloat. The agreement also includes the General Services Administration in an effort to help the Postal Service identify and achieve "further efficiencies.”
USPS listed such issues as mismanagement of the agency's retirement assets and Workers’ Compensation Program, as well as an array of regulatory requirements that the letter described as “restricting normal business practice.”
“This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done,” DeJoy wrote.
Critics of the agreement fear negative effects of the cuts will be felt across America. Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia, who was sent the letter, said turning over the Postal Service to DOGE would result in it being undermined and privatized.
“This capitulation will have catastrophic consequences for all Americans — especially those in rural and hard to reach areas — who rely on the Postal Service every day to deliver mail, medications, ballots, and more,” he said in a statement.
USPS currently employs about 640,000 workers tasked with making deliveries from inner cities to rural areas and even far-flung islands.
The service plans to cut 10,000 employees in the next 30 days through a voluntary early retirement program, according to the letter. The USPS announced the plan during the final days of the Biden administration in January but at the time didn’t include the number of workers expected to leave.
Neither the USPS nor the Trump administration immediately responded to emails from The Associated Press requesting comment.
The agency previously announced plans to cut its operating costs by more than $3.5 billion annually. And this isn't the first time thousands of employees have been cut. In 2021, the agency cut 30,000 workers.
As the service that has operated as an independent entity since 1970 has struggled to balance the books with the decline of first-class mail, it has fought calls from President Donald Trump and others that it be privatized. Last month, Trump said he may put USPS under the control of the Commerce Department in what would be an executive branch takeover.
The National Association of Letter Carriers President Brian L. Renfroe said in a statement in response to Thursday's letter that they welcome anyone's help with addressing some of the agency's biggest problems but stood firmly against any move to privatize the Postal Service.
“Common sense solutions are what the Postal Service needs, not privatization efforts that will threaten 640,000 postal employees’ jobs, 7.9 million jobs tied to our work, and the universal service every American relies on daily,” he said.
DeJoy, a Republican donor who owned a logistics business, was appointed to lead USPS during Trump’s first term in 2020. He has faced repeated challenges during his tenure, including the COVID-19 pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.
This story has been updated to make clear that the voluntary early retirement program being used to make the job cuts was announced in January and is not a result of the agreement with the Department of Government Efficiency.
FILE - Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Postal Service on Capitol Hill, Monday, Aug. 24, 2020, in Washington. (Tom Brenner/Pool via AP,File)
ATLANTA (AP) — Earlier this year, Michael Woolfolk attended a legislative committee in Georgia where lawmakers considered for a third year whether to compensate the 45-year-old for the 19 years he spent behind bars for a 2002 killing before charges against him were dismissed.
Behind him sat Daryl Lee Clark, also 45, who spent 25 years in prison for a 1998 murder conviction that was vacated over a series of legal and police errors. It was his second attempt to obtain compensation.
Georgia is one of 12 states with no law compensating people found to have been wrongfully convicted. Individuals seeking compensation take their cases to the legislature, where they seek a lawmaker to sponsor a resolution to pay them. Critics say it mires the process in politics.
Lawmakers have been considering legislation to move the decision to judges, but now it's unclear if that will pass this year.
“We need to take care simply of people who have lost so many years of their lives and their ability to make money, have a job, have a family, create stability,” Republican Rep. Katie Dempsey, a sponsor of the Georgia bill, told The Associated Press. “Many are at the age where they would be looking at their savings, and instead, there’s none.”
Missouri lawmakers have sent the governor a bill updating the state's compensation law, and legislatures in Florida and Oregon also are considering updates of their laws. Montana is considering an update of its expired program and Pennsylvania is among those, like Georgia, looking to create one.
Of the 1,739 people who have filed wrongful compensation claims under state laws since 1989, 1,328 received compensation, according to data from George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Gutman.
That doesn't include cases in states like Georgia, which has no law outlining a process.
Since 1995, 12 Georgians have received compensation and at least 11 more have sought it, according to the Georgia Innocence Project. Even some people with strong cases were turned down because they failed to convince lawmakers they were innocent, advocates say.
The latest version of Georgia's proposal would require individuals to prove their innocence to an administrative law judge. They could receive $75,000 for each year of incarceration and reimbursement for other costs such as fines and fees. There would be an additional $25,000 for each year of incarceration awaiting a death sentence.
“The way that the state has treated these individuals by taking away their freedom and liberty and effectively ruining their lives, by wrongfully convicting them and then failing to expeditiously compensate them and help them get back on their feet, doesn’t sit well with me,” said Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb, a bill sponsor and former prosecutor.
Whether a person was released based on a finding they were not guilty or based on trial or law enforcement error is often a sticking point. Advocates say those wrongfully convicted deserve compensation either way because they are innocent until proven guilty, but some lawmakers are hesitant to pay them.
Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, a former sheriff’s deputy, was the lead opponent last year of individual requests for compensation and an effort to pass a compensation law. He takes issue with the term “exonerated,” which he says is too often used in cases where convictions are overturned based on trial errors.
Robertson this year introduced a different compensation bill with stricter rules that didn't get a hearing.
Florida is the only state that prevents exonerees with previous felony convictions from qualifying for compensation, according to an analysis by the advocacy group The Innocence Project.
Florida Republican state Sen. Jennifer Bradley wants to change that. For the third year she is sponsoring a bill to end the rule, arguing that an unrelated charge should not prevent people who were wronged by the state from being compensated for their “lost liberty.”
A bill in the Oregon Legislature would update a law passed in 2022 that provides exonerees $65,000 for each year they were wrongfully imprisoned, on the condition they file a successful petition proving their innocence. The new bill comes amid criticism that few exonerees have received compensation since the law took effect.
Missouri's legislature recently passed and sent to the governor a measure expanding a restitution program for people wrongly convicted of felonies. The legislation would raise compensation from $100 to $179 per day of imprisonment and remove a requirement that innocence is proven by DNA analysis.
Many Georgia lawmakers have said they don’t want to play judge and hope the state process changes.
If the legislature doesn’t pass a bill before adjourning April 4, Woolfolk and Clark may not be compensated this year. The House overwhelmingly approved five requests that could fail in the Senate.
Starting a career at 45 is hard, Woolfolk said, and he missed his children’s upbringing. He said he is sick of trying to convince lawmakers to help him.
Clark, who does not have children, got a standing ovation from House lawmakers last year who voted to compensate him.
This year, his “hope and prayers" are that he also gains some help.
Associated Press reporters Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
Kramon and Payne are corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
*Michael Woolfolk poses for a photo at the state capitol, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Michael Woolfolk poses for a photo at the state capitol, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
