Setting the Best Postage Rates for Catalogs and Direct Mail

Since direct mail is profitable, it's a big issue whether increasing postage and thereby decreasing volume yields an increase or decrease in profits. The Post Office needs to look back at the last two price increases to see what happened to its revenue and profits as a result. Certainly volume dropped as a direct result of the postage increases; the issue is whether the USPS’s profits also declined, and if so, by how much.