Changing of the Clocks

Across party lines, Americans agree the United States should have a single time standard year-round. In other words, the ritual of changing the clocks twice a year should end:

The problem is, Americans are split about which way to lock the clock. Polling results vary depending on how the question is asked. Some show a preference for making daylight saving time permanent. Others show a preference for making standard time permanent. So while Americans broadly agree that the changing of the clocks should end, they do not agree on what should replace it.

Further complicating matters, interest groups and regional constituencies line up on opposite sides. When one coalition advances a proposal, the other mobilizes to stop it.

As a result, the unloved status quo—“spring forward, fall back”—is likely to continue, as will the complaints about it.

Permanent Daylight Saving Time

The idea of permanent daylight saving time (DST) seems appealing. People associate summer evenings with extra time for outdoor activity, recreation, and shopping. Why not keep that feeling all year? That is the pitch behind the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill that would make DST permanent nationwide.

The appeal is intuitive, but moving sunset later also pushes sunrise later. In northern states, that would mean some winter sunrises approaching 9:00 a.m. When parents realize that their kids will be walking to school in the dark for most of the winter, the trade-off starts to clarify.

This is not speculation. The United States actually tried permanent daylight saving time beginning in January 1974, as part of a response to an energy crisis. The idea was that Americans supposedly turned on more lights in the early evening than in the early morning, so extending daylight into the evening would save energy.

The experiment was intended to last two years. Public opinion was initially supportive, but when the dark winter mornings hit, so did the backlash. Safety concerns became prominent, especially involving schoolchildren. Congress partially rolled back the policy before the experiment concluded. Later research about DST’s effect on energy savings showed minimal and uncertain effects. 

With that history mostly forgotten, the Sunshine Protection Act has been floated in every Congress since 2018, so far without success. Supporters argue that eliminating clock changes would improve daily life and that Americans today are less tied to sunrise-based schedules than they were in the 1970s. Work hours are more flexible; remote work is more common; artificial lighting is ubiquitous. In that view, the modern economy favors later light.

Still, the underlying trade-off remains unchanged: more winter evening light in exchange for darker winter mornings.

Permanent Standard Time

What if we eliminated daylight saving time and simply had permanent standard time? Winter sunrises and sunsets would occur when they do now, but summer sunrises and sunsets would occur an hour earlier due to lack of DST.

The main backers of permanent standard time are the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a broad coalition of health organizations. They note the human body is regulated by light. Because standard time best aligns the clock with the sun, they argue it is best for sleep and for minimizing health and safety risks due to lack of sleep.

There currently is no bill in Congress for permanent standard time. It’s a tough sell because it would eliminate the extra hour of summer evening light many Americans have come to value from the current partial-DST system.

That said, states are allowed to opt-out of DST, and historically two have: Arizona and Hawaii. (Although federal law allows individual states to opt out of today’s partial DST, it does not allow states to implement full DST. However, some states have passed laws that implement DST conditional on Congress allowing it in the future.)

The Daylight Act of 2026

If people can’t agree whether to make standard or daylight time permanent, why not split the difference? That is the idea behind the Daylight Act of 2026, introduced by U.S. House representative Greg Steube of Florida in February. It proposes eliminating seasonal clock changes and placing the country permanently 30 minutes ahead of standard time—in effect, a 30-minute version of permanent daylight saving time. Steube has described this as a compromise: eliminate resetting the clocks, keep some of the later evening light associated with DST, and avoid the full one-hour shift that produces very late winter sunrises in northern states.

The proposal is straightforward, but it’s not clear that opponents of permanent DST are looking for a compromise. Also, the 30-minute shift would leave the United States offset from most other countries, adding friction for aviation, finance, broadcasting, and cross-border business. So, as with other solutions, the Daylight Act is reconfiguring trade-offs, not decisively solving them.

Gridlock in Locking the Clock

The latest iteration of the Sunshine Act and the new Daylight Act face several factors that make continued gridlock likely:

• Public opinion is relatively united on the problem (seasonal clock changes are bad) but divided on the solution.

• Geography makes for conflicts. The farther north a state is—and the farther west it sits within its time zone—the later winter sunrises would occur under permanent DST. Lawmakers in states with especially dark winter mornings are likely to resist permanent DST (full or 30-minute) while southern states will be more receptive.

• Interest groups are split. Retail, golf, and hospitality sectors often favor later evening light. Health organizations and some education groups favor standard time. Neither coalition is overwhelming; combined with geographical interests, each is strong enough to block the other.

• Risk asymmetry also plays a role. The current system may be disliked, but it is familiar. Bearing in mind the lesson of 1974’s experiment with permanent DST, if a member of Congress votes for a new system that proves unpopular, that’s a specific risk. In contrast, leaving the status quo doesn’t put the member specifically at fault.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that the current system is itself a compromise: It delivers later summer evenings and brighter winter mornings while keeping the United States aligned with global timekeeping. The twice-yearly clock change is the price of that bargain, which the country has accepted for fifty years.

But what about the polls that say people want to get rid of the current system? Those polls measure sentiment against an idealized abstraction—“no more changing clocks”—rather than the concrete trade-offs of any specific alternative. When those trade-offs come into view, the current system looks less like a broken default and more like a compromise most people can live with. That may explain why it endures.