Stamp Prices: 1976 to Today

NPR recently ran a story about the proposal to increase the nominal price of a stamp from $0.37 to $0.39 noting that this approximately 5% increase will be the first increase since mid-2002. Before Donald Luskin starts wondering about tax increases versus prices increases again, let’s consult with this source for a history of nominal prices since 1976 as compared to the GDP deflator to construct a historical series of stamp prices in real terms. As our graph shows, the relative price of stamps has hovered about $0.33 in terms of 2000 dollars for about 30 years.