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This Sunday at 2 a.m., most of the United States will transition into daylight saving time, advancing clocks by an hour and resulting in a 23-hour day. This shift often disrupts sleep patterns, casts early morning routines into darkness, and prompts widespread grumbling from the public.
Despite widespread disapproval reflected in surveys, the legislative efforts to abolish the biannual clock change have stalled. The debate remains contentious, with sharply divided opinions on both the desirability and potential consequences of altering the current system.
Advocates for making daylight saving time permanent should consider that doing so would have the sun rising around 9 a.m. during winter months in cities like Detroit. Conversely, maintaining standard time throughout the year would mean experiencing sunrise as early as 4:11 a.m. during June in places like Seattle.
“Unfortunately, we can’t legislate the sun’s position,” remarked Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, a group dedicated to adopting standard time year-round.
The discussion continues over which time system best suits the nation’s needs.
Imposing a clock on a rotating planet causes a lot of headaches
Genie Lauren spends her winters in New York City keeping an eye on the sunrise and sunset “white-knuckling it” until the sun is up late enough for her to feel like doing anything outside her apartment after work — even going to the movies.
“The majority of the year we’re in daylight savings time,” said the 41-year-old health care worker. “What are we doing this for?”
The U.S. has tinkered with the clock intermittently since railroads standardized the time zones in 1883. So has a lot of the world. About 140 countries have had daylight saving time at some point; about half that many do now.
About 1 in 10 U.S. adults favor the current system of changing the clocks, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted last year. About half oppose that system, and some 4 in 10 didn’t have an opinion. If they had to choose, most Americans say they would prefer to make daylight saving time permanent, rather than standard time.
A dilemma for policymakers
Since 2018, 19 states — including much of the South and a block of states in the northwestern U.S. — have adopted laws calling for a move to permanent daylight saving time.
There’s a catch: Congress would need to pass a law to allow states to go to full-time daylight saving time, something that was in place nationwide during World War II and for an unpopular, brief stint in 1974.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill in 2022 to move to permanent daylight saving time. A similar House bill hasn’t been brought to a vote.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who introduces such a bill every term, said the airline industry, which doesn’t want the scheduling complexity a change would bring, has been a factor in persuading lawmakers not to take it up.
U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, is proposing another approach.
“Why not just split the baby?” he asked. “Move it 30 minutes so it would be halfway between the two.”
Steube thinks his bill could get bipartisan support. The change would make the U.S. out of sync with most of the world — though India has taken a similar approach and in Nepal, the time is 15 minutes ahead of India.
Sleep experts prefer more daylight in the morning
Karin Johnson, the vice president of the advocacy group Save Standard Time and a professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, said permanent standard time — with the sun straight overhead close to noon — would help students, drivers and practically everyone else function better year-round.
“Morning light is what’s really critical for setting our circadian rhythms each day,” she said.
Kenneth Wright, a professor and director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado, said the risk of fatal vehicle crashes, heart attacks and strokes increases in the days that follow turning the clock forward.
“Based on the evidence for our health and well-being and safety, the best option for us as a country now is to choose to go to permanent standard time,” he said.
Obstacles block change
Of all U.S. states, only Arizona — except the Navajo Nation — and Hawaii currently opt out of daylight saving time.
In the last two years, half a dozen states have adopted bills to switch to permanent standard time in one legislative chamber, including Virginia in February. A Virginia House committee this week recommended dropping the issue until 2027.
Most of those measures included caveats that the change would only take effect if neighboring states also made the move. For instance, Virginia would go to standard time only if Maryland and Washington, D.C., do, too. That could partially answer some of the concerns from groups including broadcasters who warn of schedule confusion. It wouldn’t solve the concerns of the golf industry, which opposes full-time standard time because that would make it harder for people to get in a round in the evening.
Many full-time daylight time bills have similar provisions.
A call to make states decide
Scott Yates, a Colorado man who runs the website Lock the Clock, wants the federal government to pass a law to end the twice-a-year clock change in two years.
Under his plan, states would have to commit to either daylight saving or standard time.
As long as the clock changes persist, Yates has some advice.
“If you’re the boss, tell all your employees on Monday that they can come in an hour later,” he said. “And if you aren’t the boss, tell your boss that you think you should come in an hour later on Monday. Sleep in for safety.”
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