The truth about Priority Mail: Ten times the price of First Class, but no faster

It was a simple thing to do. The New York Daily News sent 10 batches of mail to points all around the country. To each destination, one piece went as First Class mail, which costs from 42¢, and another piece went as Priority Mail, which costs from $4.95. Despite the U.S. Postal Service's aggressive efforts to upsell Americans into buying Priority Mail postage, the deliveries arrived on the same day 80% of the time.

I think we all expected the Postal Service's more expensive mail options to perhaps be a slick bit of puffery, but I don't think we expected them to be pretty much worthless. More to the point, I think most people assumed that Priority Mail was faster, a misconception that the Postal Service is in no hurry to openly and clearly correct.