Every state except Hawaii and Arizona is now observing daylight savings time. But each year, many states say it’s time to stop using clocks and embrace year-round daylight saving time.
Photo Anna Blazhuk / Getty
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Photo Anna Blazhuk / Getty
Every state except Hawaii and Arizona is now observing daylight savings time. But each year, many states say it’s time to stop using clocks and embrace year-round daylight saving time.
Photo Anna Blazhuk / Getty
Millions of Americans want to give up the time change we endure twice a year, disrupt our circadian rhythms and create confusion. More than a third of US states are now reverting to a permanent transition to daylight saving time. If that happens, it will be a final victory for a scheme that businesses have hailed for more than 100 years.
Because In 2022, daylight saving time officially ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, November 6.
Daylight saving is a money maker
When daylight saving mode was extended in early November 15 years ago, many considered the US candy industry the winner, as extra daylight hours could boost sales. sell more Halloween candies.
But support between businesses goes deeper than that, according to time change expert Michael Downing, a professor at Tufts University who wrote Spring Forward: The Yearly Madness of Daylight Saving Time.
“What we don’t tend to know as Americans as the largest corridor on behalf of daylight saving since 1915 in this country – and to this day – is the Chamber of Commerce,” Downing, who passed away earlier this year, said in a 2015 video about daylight saving.
“They figured something out very early on: If you give workers daylight, when they leave work, they’re more likely to stop and shop on the way home.”
Follow Historian Mike O’Malley of George Mason University.
When Congress held hearings on the expansion of DST in the mid-1980s, officials from the golf industry said “an additional $200 million worth of daylight savings in the sale of more golf clubs and golf fees”, Downing tell NPR in 2007. “The barbecue industry says it’s worth $100 million.”
19 states say we should all just spring forward
Every state except Hawaii and Arizona is now observing daylight savings time. But each year, many states say it’s time to stop using clocks and embrace year-round daylight saving time.
“Final Five years, 19 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide year-round daylight savings time, if Congress authorizes such a change. National Conference of State Legislatures.
Momentum seems to be building: Between 2015 and 2019, 29 states enacted laws repealing clock resets, according to Transportation facilitiesin charge of time zones and daylight saving.
Supported states ranged from Florida to Washington. Several states said they would link a potential transition to the DST decisions of their nearest neighbors, hoping to minimize disruption in areas like the Midwest and New England. .
None of those states can act without an act of Congress — and Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has repeatedly introduced legislation to make it happen. His Sun Protection Act through the Senatebut still waiting for House approval.
US territories such as Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, US Samoa, and Guam are not currently observing daylight savings.
A World War I poster praising daylight saving time, in which Uncle Sam changes his clock as a clockwork figure throws his hat into the air. The one-hour adjustment will revert to standard time on November 7.
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A World War I poster praising daylight saving time, in which Uncle Sam changes his clock as a clockwork figure throws his hat into the air. The one-hour adjustment will revert to standard time on November 7.
Library of Congress
Daylight Saving Time is the new standard
“Standard time” is only valid for a fraction of the year, with daylight saving time controlling the clocks for 34 weeks – about eight months – in 2022. That’s far from the law. initially divided by two years.
Lawmakers have steadily extended the summer timetable in recent decades. The first major change occurred in 1986, when daylight saving time was moved earlier, from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday.
Then, in 2005, Congress moved the start date a month earlier in the spring and pushed it a week later in the fall. The longer time frame came into effect in 2007.
Those changes all followed the introduction of daylight saving time in 1966, when Congress passed the very sci-fi-sounding Uniform Time Act. Up until that point, the United States was primarily focused on daylight saving during World War I and World War II.
It all started as an energy policy
For decades, changing clocks during the months with the most sunlight was recommended as a way to save energy. Indeed, the most recent expansion of DST was through an energy bill that Congress passed in 2005.
In the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin was a prominent advocate for daylight saving time. He “calculated that the city of Paris could save millions of pounds of candle wax a year if people woke up early in the morning and went to bed early at night,” according to the House of Commons. history blog.
We should note that despite inspiring Franklin’s idea, Paris, aka the City of Lights, does not seem to have embraced it.
Critics say there’s a flaw in the idea that America would save energy if people didn’t use lights as much: We now have more ways to consume energy, including running air conditioners and TV at home. According to Downing, we also consume more gas when driving around to enjoy that bonus hour.
“Daylight Savings is a failure as an energy plan, but it’s a great retail spending plan,” he said in his video on the issue.
Still, even Downing acknowledges that daylight saving is a huge hit: “I don’t think it’s going away,” he said.
