Oakland, CA Facts

For Oakland and California,
'Do Not Mail' Would Mean 'Do Not Work'

Despite the growth of electronic communications, thousands of small businesses across California and the United States still rely on advertising mail to keep their businesses growing. Advertising mail doesn’t kill forests, but banning it would kill thousands of American jobs.

Advertising Mail is Driving Economic Growth in Oakland and California

• Mail matters to small businesses.  Nearly 22,400 small businesses in California relied on advertising mail last year to reach new customers, generate sales and create jobs.
• Last year, more than $1.3 billion in sales were generated in the Oakland/Berkeley area as a result of advertising mail.
• Advertising mail brought nearly $97 billion in increased sales last year to California’s economy.

Advertising Mail Means Jobs for Oakland and California

• With California's unemployment rate at 12.3%, the last thing we should do is enact legislation that would hurt small businesses and put more Californians out of work.
  
  
  • More than 6,300 jobs in the Oakland/Berkeley region are made possible by advertising mail – including printers, paper suppliers, warehouse workers, postal employees and manufacturers creating the products to be sold.
  • More than 49,000 California workers were directly employed in advertising mail marketing last year.  Another 362,000 California jobs were made possible by advertising mail and the sales it generates.

Advertising Mail is Environmentally Responsible

• Advertising mail relies on sustainable forestry practices, utilizing trees that are planted, harvested and re-planted for the use of paper. In fact, nearly four million trees are planted in the United States every day. As a result, there are more forests in the United States today than there were fifty years ago.
• Advertising mail is recyclable. According to the EPA, the recycling rate for advertising mail has increased by 700 percent since 1990, and that rate continues to climb.
• Oakland residents increasingly want to support their local businesses by shopping locally and eating locally. But eliminating advertising mail would hurt the small and local businesses that consumers want to support.

Advertising Mail is a Critical Tool for Small Businesses

• More than eight out of ten households read or scan the advertising mail they receive. At some point or another, nearly everyone has used a coupon for a local business that they received in the mail.
• Taking away advertising mail is unfair to the more than 300,000 small businesses around the United States who rely on it. Unlike their larger competitors, these small businesses can’t afford large-scale TV, radio and print campaigns.

Advertising Mail Makes the U.S. Postal Service Possible

• Advertising mail currently provides a third of the revenue for the U.S. Postal Service, supporting its daily operations and the 74,600 people in California whose jobs depend on a viable postal syTuesday, January 5, 2010 4:56 PM radio, newspapers and online communications, advertising provides much of the revenue that makes steady, reliable postal delivery possible.

updated: Tuesday, January 5, 2010 3:36 PM