The idea of never changing your clocks again may sound appealing — but the United States has already given it a shot, and it didn’t go well.
Legislation moving through Congress would make daylight saving time permanent across the country, putting an end to the spring-forward and fall-back routine that many Americans find frustrating. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure earlier this week. President Donald Trump has signaled his support for the change. However, the Senate must still pass the bill before it can become law.
Right now, clocks move forward one hour each spring and back again each fall, giving people longer evenings during the summer months. But that biannual ritual has very few supporters. An AP-NORC poll from last year found that just 12% of American adults actually want to keep switching the clocks, while nearly half are opposed to it. Groups like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have also come out in favor of settling on a single, consistent time.
Still, history offers a cautionary tale. Back in 1973, Congress passed a law establishing permanent daylight saving time as a trial set to run from January 1974 through April 1975. It didn’t make it that far. Public opposition — including concerns about children walking to school in total darkness during winter mornings — led Congress to repeal it in October 1974, less than a year into the experiment.
Kevin Birth, an anthropology professor at Queens College whose academic work centers on how cultures understand time, was a grade school student in Syracuse, New York, during that period and hasn’t forgotten what it was like. “I had to get up for school and it was like it was midnight,” he recalled. “It was just pitch black and it remained pitch black into the school day.”
Birth argues that if the country tries permanent daylight saving time again, adjusting the clocks alone won’t be enough. He says the nation’s time zones would also need to be rethought. The existing four zones span such large geographic areas that sunrise times can vary significantly between the eastern and western edges of each zone, making a one-size-fits-all approach complicated.
Supporters of another attempt point to some things that have changed since the 1970s. More people now work from home, which could reduce concerns about commuting in the dark. Advances in sleep science have also added new layers to the conversation about how time changes affect human health. School start times have also been trending later in many districts, which could ease worries about children heading to class before sunrise.
Whether this latest push will succeed where past efforts have fallen short remains to be seen — the Senate has yet to take up the bill.
