Science & Nature
It’s Time to Spring Forward an Hour This Weekend, But Is the Clock Ticking on Daylight Saving?
(west / iStock)
Get ready to spring forward this weekend, as Daylight Saving Time goes into effect.
Clocks will officially move ahead one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, with folks across the country (with a couple of exceptions) gaining an hour of sunlight at the end of the day until we fall back to Standard Time in November.
But could this be the last hurrah for the time change?
The tradition of resetting of clocks twice a year has always had its detractors, and Daylight Saving was on-again, off-again in the U.S. for most of the last century until the Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966.
That act allows states to opt out of Daylight Saving, but states “do not have the authority to choose to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time,” per the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has federal oversight of time zones.
In recent years, Congress has taken up the issue. The Sunshine Protection Act would make Daylight Saving year-round, but that bill stalled amid debate over which is preferable: Daylight Saving or Standard Time. It was reintroduced in January.
President Donald Trump entered the conversation in December 2024, posting on Truth Social: “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
A 2021 poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that indeed more Americans are in favor of permanent Standard Time or Daylight Saving, with 43% opting for the former and 32% for the latter. Another 25% prefer the status quo of switching back and forth.
Elon Musk, the president’s billionaire adviser, conducted his own poll on the platform X (formerly Twitter), asking, “If daylight savings time change is canceled, do you prefer: an hour earlier, an hour later?”
An hour earlier nabbed 41.9% of the vote, and an hour later was preferred by 58.1%. Though many found the wording of the question confusing, there was general agreement “an hour later” meant Daylight Saving, as in “an hour more of sunlight.”
The primary argument for permanent Standard Time is that it’s more in tune with people’s biological clock. Morning sun provides the visual cue for people to wake up and start their day, and darkness at night preps people to fall asleep.
On the flip side, those in favor of permanent Daylight Saving say it promotes recreation, shopping and other activities at night, giving people more hours after work to enjoy themselves.
The compromise between both those worlds brings us back to where we started: Get ready to spring forward this weekend.
Contact Patty Wetli: [email protected]
