USPS halts contributions to pension plan after warning of "cash crisis"

MoneyWatch USPS suspends contributions to employee pensions after warning of "cash crisis" .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-moneywatch.jpg'); } By Aimee Picchi Aimee Picchi Associate Managing Editor, MoneyWatch Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports. Read Full Bio Aimee Picchi April 9, 2026 / 10:45 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google The U.S. Postal Service is suspending its contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System, a pension plan for its workers and other civil servants, as the agency struggles with mounting losses that put it at risk of running out of funds. "The United States Postal Service is heading toward a cash crisis," USPS spokesman David Walton said in a statement to CBS News. "The step we are now taking to suspend FERS payments helps conserve cash for our operations and other necessary payments."The USPS contributes about $400 million a month to its employee pension plan, the agency said in a statement on Thursday. The postal service said it will continue to send worker contributions to the retirement plan and will also transmit employer automatic and matching contributions, as well as employee contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan, another retirement program for federal workers.Out of cash in a yearThe temporary halt in contributions to the USPS program comes after Postmaster General David Steiner warned Congress last month that the postal agency is heading for a financial crisis without a course correction. Those changes could include raising the cost of a first-class stamp to 95 cents or reducing delivery from its current six days per week schedule to five or fewer, he said. Without such changes, Steiner said, the USPS could run out of cash within 12 months, which could re...