Since 1775, the U.S. government has provided postal services in the United States. The service began as a conduit for communication between "Congress and the armies" during the Revolutionary War. In 1863, the Post Office Department (now the U.S. Postal Service (USPS)), pursuant to statute, began delivering mail to certain addresses in cities if postage was enough to "pay for all expenses of the service." By 1896, the Post Office Department was making deliveries to certain rural and urban homes six days per week. In some cities, delivery occurred more than once per day until 1950. In other, more remote rural areas, deliveries continue to occur fewer than six days per week. Today, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivers to "150 million homes and businesses, six days a week." Throughout the service's history there have been discussions about reducing the number of delivery days to conserve fuel and reduce costs. After running modest profits from FY2004 through FY2006, USPS lost $25.4 billion between FY2007 and FY2011. Were it not for congressional action to reduce a statutorily required payment to the Retiree Health Benefits Fund (RHBF), USPS would have lost an additional $9.5 billion. In the first three quarters of FY2012, USPS had an operating loss of $11.5 billion. The bleak economic forecast for USPS has prompted its leaders, Congress, and the public to suggest methods that may increase revenue or reduce expenses. Among these suggestions is to reduce the number of delivery days from six to five. Currently, appropriations law requires USPS to maintain six-day delivery. Congress, however, has the authority to legislate how many days of the week USPS is to deliver mail. Congress also may authorize USPS to determine its delivery schedule. Maintaining six-day delivery could contribute to the economic decline of the U.S. Postal Service. Eliminating a delivery day alone, however, would not solve USPS's financial challenges and could reduce USPS sales and revenue, lead to service delays, prompt job loss at USPS, or affect vulnerable populations who rely on six-day delivery. Members of the 112 th Congress have introduced nine bills ( H.R. 2309 ; H.R. 2434 ; H.R. 3591 ; H.R. 3744 ; S. 1010 ; S. 1573 ; S. 1625 ; S. 1789 ; and S. 1853 ) and one resolution ( H.Res. 137 ) regarding six-day mail delivery. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 required that USPS maintain six-day delivery during FY2012. President Barack Obama's FY2013 budget requested that Congress help "reduce USPS operating costs by giving USPS authority, which it has said it will exercise, to reduce mail delivery from six days to five days starting in 2013." Nevertheless, both the House and Senate versions of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2013 ( H.R. 2434 , S. 1573 ), include language requiring USPS to continue delivering mail six days per week. The Continuing Resolution ( P.L. 112-175 ) extended the six-day requirement through March 27, 2013. Two studies of the possible economic effects of reducing USPS delivery were conducted in 2008. One study, conducted by USPS, estimated the financial savings of a five-day delivery week at $3.5 billion annually, with no anticipated reduction in sales volume. The other study, by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), estimated the savings at $1.93 billion annually, and includes an expected loss of $580 million in sales volume. A subsequent PRC Advisory Opinion on the Elimination of Saturday Delivery , released in March 2011, found that USPS's study on eliminating a delivery day overestimated net and gross savings and underestimated potential revenue losses. The advisory opinion estimated that USPS could save $1.7 billion in annual net savings by eliminating Saturday delivery. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in March 2011 stating that a move to five-day mail delivery could better align services "with reduced mail volume," but could also "reduce service," "put mail volumes and revenues at risk," and "eliminate jobs." The report also said that eliminating one delivery day would "by itself, be insufficient to solve USPS's financial challenges." The report further stated: If Congress decides 5-day delivery is necessary, then Congress and USPS could factor the savings into deliberations about what package of actions should be taken to restore USPS's financial viability. Conversely, if Congress maintains the mandate for 6-day delivery, Congress and USPS would need to find other ways to achieve equivalent financial savings, so that the package is sufficient to restore USPS's financial viability. This would likely entail difficult decisions with broad implications for USPS's infrastructure, workforce, and service. As GAO has reported, a package of actions by Congress and USPS is urgently needed to modernize USPS's operations, networks, and workforce. Other countries have varied mail delivery schedules. A sampling of various countries' mail delivery practices found that some countries deliver mail five days per week (Australia and Sweden) while others deliver mail six days per week (France, Germany, and The Netherlands). Royal Mail, which delivers mail in the United Kingdom (UK) six days per week, reportedly contemplated eliminating Saturday delivery in 2008 because of economic concerns. Canada Post, which receives no national appropriation, offers letter-carrier services five days per week and does not deliver mail or parcels on most Saturdays. New Zealand Post offers six-day mail delivery services to some customers, but not to customers living in rural areas. In addition, New Zealand Post customers who send mail that requires a Saturday delivery must pay an additional fee, and parcels are not delivered on Saturdays in New Zealand. Currently, all but 25,000 of USPS's 135 million residential mail recipients receive six-day mail delivery. When USPS began the practice is unclear. Based on the following review of legislative and postal history, it appears that six-day delivery was not legally required until FY1981, when Congress placed language requiring six-day delivery in USPS's appropriation. The first statute governing general postal delivery was enacted in 1863 when Congress passed a law that authorized the Postmaster General "to make delivery, within any prescribed postal district, of mail matter by letter-carrier, as frequently as the public convenience in such district shall require, and shall make all proper regulations for that purpose." According to USPS, prior to 1863, postage payments did not include home or office delivery and included only "the delivery of mail from Post Office to Post Office." Patrons, however, "could pay an extra two-cent fee for letter delivery" to private homes and businesses. Private delivery firms also delivered items to homes or businesses. By 1888, however, mail carriers "were instructed to deliver letters frequently and promptly—generally twice a day to homes and up to four times a day to businesses.… The second residential delivery was discontinued on April 17, 1950, in most cities." Current USPS policies limit deliveries to one per day in all locations. USPS initiated rural home delivery on October 1, 1896, with deliveries to homes in Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla, West Virginia. With the advent of rural delivery, the Post Office Department grew at a rapid pace and began to resemble the modern-day USPS. Representative Tom Corcoran stated at a congressional hearing that the Postal Service took its first formal step toward eliminating one delivery day per week in 1976 when it conducted a study to examine the possible effects of such delivery reduction. That study, according to Corcoran, was completed, but a formal proposal stemming from the study was not drafted. Instead, in 1977, the congressionally-created Commission on Postal Service (created in 1975) submitted to Congress and the President a report that discussed the possibility of transitioning to five-day delivery. The members of the congressional commission were divided on whether to recommend eliminating a day of Postal Service delivery. The commission's final report said that five of the seven commissioners reluctantly recommended the reduction in delivery, but did not say which day of the week would be the optimal day off. While the Commission would prefer not to recommend a reduction in delivery standards, the alternative of increased postal costs and rates causing volume declines is less acceptable. The other alternative is to increase the public service appropriation to provide six-day delivery. A majority of the Commission does not favor this course. We find that six-day delivery, although convenient, is not considered essential by a great majority of our citizens when compared with the costs of providing that service. According to the New York Times , USPS had already been reducing a variety of services and deliveries in early 1976 to cut rising costs. The report said Representative James M. Hanley, then-chairman of the House Postal Service Subcommittee, called for "a moratorium on service cutbacks and rural office closings that were meant to save money." According to the article, then-Postmaster General Benjamin F. Bailar agreed to stop the service cutbacks. On July 12, 1977, Representative Charles H. Wilson introduced a resolution ( H.Con.Res. 277 ) that stated the Postal Service should not reduce its service delivery days. On August 4, 1977, the House Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service recommended the passage of the resolution. On September 26, 1977, the resolution passed the House by a vote of 377 to 9. H.Con.Res. 277 was referred to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which took no further action on the bill.