OP here. Not trying to be cute but it seems the USPS must be prioritizing different categories of mail. For instance, I always get my bills on time, same time each month. Not complaining, just observing.
Where are they coming from? My general feeling based on watching packages travel around is that it's not local capacity that's limited - it's the spokes between the mail hubs that are choked. If the bill is coming from someone in your general area, it's no surprise that they're coming on time, because there's no real capacity limits being hit. But packages coming across the country have to run through a very, very choked pipeline compared to capacity right now, and there's no real end to that in sight.
A
massive amount of USPS mail goes via air. One might note that USPS doesn't have their own plane fleet, and one would be entirely correct. Unlike FedEx/UPS, USPS has been contracting mail delivery on passenger airlines for an awfully long while. This works fine, helps keep planes busy, and fails entirely when passenger air volume falls off a cliff. It took a while for the backup to happen, but now we've got winter weather across large chunks of the country as well, which interferes with the truck routes that have been taking the slack. Can't go by air, and the highway is non-navigable... the mail just doesn't get through. And you end up with backups on the cross country routes.
It took a USPS Priority Mail (2 day, small flat rate box) package I sent from Dec 8 to Dec 23 to get from Boise to Huntsville, AL.
Another terrible thing to think of: We've also seen a huge increase in mail theft in my area - folks getting mail stolen from their boxes in front of their house and even a rash of theft in the mail box banks (where they have a central location for the neighborhood with each home having a keyed lockbox) that usually are locked and then leaving mail they don't want strewn across the block. Folks have even shown clear videos of these assholes walking down the street and checking/stealing from the boxes (wearing backpacks for the stuff they take). Porch pirates are reported every single day on my social media also with clear videos but it's happening so much (bedroom city outside major metro city) I'm not sure how our local police/USPS are even handling this. It's blatant, but it's all over the place. :(
Not enforcing federal code, that's for sure. I guess that's considered racist now?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/170818 U.S. Code § 1708 - Theft or receipt of stolen mail matter generally
Whoever steals, takes, or abstracts, or by fraud or deception obtains, or attempts so to obtain, from or out of any mail, post office, or station thereof, letter box, mail receptacle, or any mail route or other authorized depository for mail matter, or from a letter or mail carrier, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or abstracts or removes from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein, or secretes, embezzles, or destroys any such letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein; or
Whoever steals, takes, or abstracts, or by fraud or deception obtains any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein which has been left for collection upon or adjacent to a collection box or other authorized depository of mail matter; or
Whoever buys, receives, or conceals, or unlawfully has in his possession, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein, which has been so stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted, as herein described, knowing the same to have been stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
