There are two ways to miss a target. One is to fall short of it. The other is to move it closer and fall short anyway.
GAO's report on the Postal Service documents both, in order.
The standard moved twice
USPS published a ten-year strategic plan in 2021 aimed at "financial sustainability and service excellence." Since then, in GAO's account, the expected delivery time itself has changed twice:
Effective October 2021, USPS added 1 to 2 days to its expected delivery times for certain products to accommodate its transportation change from air to ground.
In April 2025, USPS further changed expected delivery times by eliminating end-of-day or afternoon collection at the over 24,000 post offices that are more than 50 miles from a Regional Processing and Delivery Center.
Twenty-four thousand post offices is not a rounding error; it is most of the country's rural counter network. A letter dropped in the afternoon at one of those offices now begins its journey the next day.
The target moved too
A service standard is how long the mail is supposed to take. A service performance target is the percentage of mail expected to make it. Both are set by USPS.
Additionally, USPS lowered its service performance targets — the percentage of mail it expects to meet service standards — in fiscal year 2021 and has not met most targets since then.
So: the deadline got longer, the pass mark got lower, and most of the pass marks were still missed. GAO's summary of the arithmetic is blunt — "USPS has largely failed to meet even these reduced service standards."
Who absorbed it
GAO attributes this to what it heard rather than to its own measurement, and the distinction matters:
While intended to achieve cost savings, USPS's strategic plan initiatives have slowed service for some mail and had a disproportionate impact on rural customers, according to oversight entities and industry stakeholders.
The 50-mile rule makes that mechanical rather than mysterious. Distance from a processing centre is the criterion; rural post offices are the ones that are far from things.
What GAO says has not worked
USPS "has tried to address service performance in several ways, including using diagnostic tools and regular operational meetings." GAO's verdict on that: "ongoing service performance issues indicate that USPS's actions have not been sufficient."
It also names the constraint honestly rather than treating it as an excuse: "broader challenges — such as USPS's poor financial condition — may contribute to the difficulty in doing so."
The recommendation, and the date on it
GAO does not recommend a delivery standard. It recommends telling people:
Given persistent concerns about service performance, it is important that USPS clearly communicate about its ongoing and planned actions to address this issue, even as it seeks to cut costs, as well as about the challenges it faces.
And it attaches that to a specific opportunity — "the upcoming update to USPS's strategic plan, which is planned for 2027, presents an opportunity for USPS to communicate this information to Congress, the public, and relevant stakeholders."
That is the date to write down. A strategic-plan update is the document where a lowered target either gets explained or gets lowered again, and it is due next year.