(NEXSTAR) – The United States Postal Service has announced plans to increase postage prices this summer.
In a bulletin released Wednesday, the USPS said it had filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission, seeking permission to raise the price of stamps beginning July 10.
The price of a Forever stamp would increase to 60 cents.
If approved by the Regulatory Commission, the following increases would come into effect:
| USPS Product | The current cost | Cost after July 10 |
| Letters (1 ounce) | 58 cents | 60 cents |
| Letters (measured 1 oz.) | 53 cents | 57 cents |
| Letters (additional ounces) | 20 cents | 24 cents |
| Domestic postcards | 40 cents | 44 cents |
| International letters (1 oz.) | $1.30 | $1.40 |
The USPS recently raised prices in August, according to CBS News, when the cost of a Forever stamp rose from 55 cents to 58 cents.
A Forever stamp, as the name suggests, can be used to send a letter regardless of the date of purchase. This means that if you bought a booklet of Forever stamps 10 years ago, when the price was 45 cents each, you can still use them to send letters now, even though prices have gone up.
Even though they come shortly after a recent price hike, the Postal Service said the latest proposal doesn’t even keep up with rising inflation. The proposed price increases represent a 6.5% jump, but the annual inflation rate was 7.9% at the end of February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“With the new prices, the Postal Service will continue to provide the lowest letter-mail postage rates in the industrialized world and provide great value in shipping,” the USPS statement said.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed legislation to save the Post Office’s six-day-a-week delivery service. The legislation was approved by Congress last month after years of discussion and followed numerous complaints about slowdowns in courier services.
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Officials had repeatedly warned that without congressional action, the Postal Service would run out of cash by 2024. The final bill won rare, bipartisan support by scrapping some of the most controversial proposals to fix major ways to save the service.
Mail delivery is one of the most popular things about government, with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the Postal Service, according to a Pew Research Center poll released in 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.