Hawley bill would ban USPS leadership bonuses

WASHINGTON – Sen. Josh Hawley announced legislation this week to ban bonuses for leadership in the United States Postal Service due to what he says is bad service.

Hawley’s “No Bonuses for Bad Service Act” comes after weeks of complaints about Postmaster General David Steiner.

He had a heated exchange with Steiner in a Senate Homeland committee hearing last month where he pressed the postal chief over a missing pile of mail that was discovered in an abandoned lot in St. Louis in April.

“Thousands of pieces of mail,” Hawley said during the hearing. “Tax documents, prescription drugs, bills, utility communications from companies, thousands and thousands of documents.”

Report: Some mail was postmarked as early as January

According to Fox 2, some pieces of mail were postmarked as early as January. Steiner claimed that the hearing was the first time that he had heard of the mail scandal.

During the hearing, Hawley displayed a poster board stating that the postmasters general had received over $300,000 in bonuses in 2025, and over $2 million in the past ten years.

“Why are you getting bonuses when my constituents can’t get the mail,” Hawley pressed.

Steiner did not answer when Hawley asked if Steiner would pledge not to take any bonuses until the crisis was resolved.

About a week after the hearing, Hawley sent a letter to Steiner informing him that his office is, “launching a new congressional investigation into systematic service failures in Missouri, possible criminal activity, and bonuses for executives at USPS.”

Hawley then decided to take action “to prohibit United States Postal Service (USPS) leadership from receiving bonuses or additional compensation until mail service and delivery meet the standards that the American people deserve,” according to a news release from Hawley’s office.

According to the release, the bill would:

• Prohibit the USPS Board of Governors from approving any additional compensation for the Postmaster General and Deputy Postmaster General for a fiscal year in which the Postal Service does not meet or exceed an on-time delivery rate of 95% for all market dominant mail products.
• Require the Postal Service to submit its annual delivery rate report to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

No bill text was readily available.

Kennedy Voss, Missouri News Network

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Kennedy Voss is a reporter for the Columbia Missourian and is a Washington correspondent for Missouri News Network.

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