Clocks will skip ahead an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday for daylight saving time in most of the U.S., creating a 23-hour day that throws off sleep schedules, plunges early-morning dog walks into darkness and inspires millions of complaints.
While polls show that everyone loves to complain about changing clocks twice a year, the policy changes necessary to change the system because even on this issue, Americans are deeply divided. Perhaps what unites us is our habit of complaining without ever changing.
- Making daylight saving time permanent would mean the sun rises around 9 a.m. in Detroit for a while during the winter.
- Staying on standard time year round would mean the sun would be up at 4:11 a.m. in Seattle in June.
It’s health experts who say we would be better off to have more daylight in the mornings — which would mean permanent standard time.
“There’s no law we can pass to move the sun to our will,” said Jay Pea, the president of Save Standard Time, an organization devoted to switching to standard time for good.
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.
Much of the South and a few Northwestern states — 19 in total — have passed bills to move to a full time daylight saving time. But they need a federal bill passed to put the plan into action. This was in place during World War 2, and for an unpopular short stint in 1974.
The Senate did pass a bill to move forward with permanent daylight saving time in 2022, but the House’s similar bill has been on hold — but apparently it is the airline industry who convinces lawmakers to hold up on making the move due to the complexity of scheduling changes.
Then there’s the golf industry who lobbies against permanent standard time, which would make it harder to get in a round of golf in the evenings.
Florida Rep. Greg Steube thinks his proposal to split the difference with a 30 minute change would get bipartisan support. But such a change would make the U.S. out of sync with the rest of the world.