This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Thursday, September 8th, 2022 on Caleb Brown.

It's an idea that just won't die, postal banking.

Never mind that dismal results from the rollout won't die, postal banking.

Never mind the dismal results from the rollout,

it remains unclear what problems it solves

by turning post offices into facilities for banking.

Cato's Nick Anthony discusses why this failed idea keeps coming back.

This seems like, and maybe you and I have discussed this, I know I've discussed this on this

podcast a number of times, which is Postal Banking, the idea that the United States Postal Service,

you know, not having enough to do, ought to be handling cash transactions for people and given the low usage of the pilot program

that had been rolled out and the fact that financial innovations are everywhere.

It just, how does this idea keep coming back?

I really wish I could answer that question. It just does not make sense to me that this is something that's come up time and time again.

I mean it's something that existed throughout America's early history and was taken out of the equation in the 60s because so few people used it.

So it shouldn't be that surprising that when we see it brought back today, it's suffering

from those same issues. There's just too many better alternatives, both for people on the bottom of the income scale and the top, to want to actually use this.

So, remind us to the extent that this program has rolled out, what was the program that was rolled out? Who was using it? What were the

results? So the Postal Banking Pilot Program was rolled out in September 2021 with four locations in Baltimore, the Bronx, Falls

Church, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. and it introduced a way that people could take their paychecks to the post office and get them

cashed. Now there was a slight caveat with that where you could only cash up to $500 per day and there's a fee of $195 to do so.

So right out of the gate it's not a very good deal for folks. And people took notice. People clearly saw that this was not a good deal for them because through November

postal employees actually reported nobody went to the Bronx location

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