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Are mail carriers getting paid ???
Executive Summary
Mail carriers’ pay status during recent U.S. and Canadian labor and funding disruptions varies by employer and legal status: United States Postal Service (USPS) employees are generally not subject to federal shutdown furlough rules and should continue to be paid, whereas many federal civilian workers have worked without pay during the November 2025 U.S. government shutdown; Canadian postal employees faced strike-related pay and benefit uncertainty in late 2024–2025. The reporting shows two distinct stories—USPS’s statutory independence from annual appropriations protects regular pay flows (but not all administrative pay adjustments), while federal agencies affected by shutdowns and Canadian collective-action disputes produced interruptions or delayed compensation for some postal workers [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Why the USPS can usually pay carriers even during a shutdown — statutory independence explained
The National Postal Mail Handlers Union states that the USPS is not an appropriated federal agency, which means its operating revenues fund paychecks rather than Congress’s annual funding bills, so mail carriers and mail handlers generally continue to receive paychecks during a federal funding lapse. The union explicitly reported that mail handlers were expected to report to work and receive salaries as scheduled, with the caveat that some retroactive adjustments were delayed by a programming issue at the Eagan Accounting Service Center [1]. This distinction—USPS funding from postage and services versus appropriations—creates a practical firewall that allows the agency to keep paying employees even when other federal agencies must furlough staff during a lapse in appropriations.
2. Contradictory reporting during the November 2025 shutdown — who was unpaid and why it mattered
Multiple November 2025 news accounts documented that over a million federal workers endured unpaid workdays as the shutdown reached day 37, with reports that roughly 700,000 federal workers were furloughed and many more working without pay; articles noted broad impacts across agencies (flight delays, SNAP gaps) and described federal employees facing delayed compensation until the shutdown ended [2] [3]. Those reports underscore a practical divergence: while many federal employees faced immediate unpaid status, USPS’s non-appropriated status meant its pay practices differed from other agencies. News dispatches in early November 2025, however, did not uniformly specify the status of mail carriers, leading to public confusion when headlines about unpaid federal workers were conflated with USPS employees [2] [3].
3. Retroactive pay and administrative glitches — the nuance the headlines missed
Even when USPS employees are eligible to be paid during funding lapses, administrative issues can produce gaps or delays. The union’s communication pointed to a programming issue at a USPS accounting center that delayed some retroactive salary adjustments, meaning some pay anomalies can occur despite the agency’s financial independence [1]. Separately, other federal agencies have legal and budgetary constraints that force furloughs or unpaid work; those employees are typically entitled to back pay once Congress appropriates funds, but that requires specific legislative language if lawmakers choose otherwise. These mechanics explain how broad statements about “federal workers unpaid” can be accurate while still leaving most postal pay uninterrupted.
4. Canada’s postal disputes show a different pattern — strikes, collective agreements, and pay risk
In Canada, the pay picture for mail carriers is shaped by collective bargaining and strike law, not by appropriation mechanics. Coverage from late 2024 and mid-2025 shows that Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers negotiated through strike notices and proposals over overtime, weekend work, and benefits, and that Canada Post at times terminated collective agreements ahead of strike action, creating real risk of lost pay and suspended benefits if work stoppages occurred [4] [5]. Those disputes placed compensation and job-structure questions at the center of negotiations, and readers’ commentary and reporting reflected explicit concerns that strikes or terminated agreements could disrupt pay and benefits for Canadian mail carriers.
5. Bottom line and practical guidance for concerned mail carriers and the public
For U.S. mail carriers: expect normal pay flows from USPS during a typical federal shutdown because USPS operations are funded outside annual appropriations, but watch for administrative delays or retroactive adjustment issues flagged by USPS accounting centers [1]. For other U.S. federal workers: recognize many agencies did have employees working without pay during the November 2025 shutdown and that back pay depends on congressional action [2] [3]. For Canadian postal workers and the public: monitor collective bargaining developments because strikes, terminated agreements, or negotiated changes to weekend and overtime rules directly affect immediate pay and benefits [4] [5]. These distinctions explain why headlines about “federal workers unpaid” and union notices about Canadian postal strikes can both be true without contradicting the fact that USPS employees are usually paid during shutdowns [1] [2] [5].