The vast majority of the U.S. will turn their clocks forward in a matter of weeks.
Most Americans will lose an hour of sleep, but will gain an extra hour of sunlight when daylight saving time begins starting on Sunday, March 9.
While DST was first instated more than a century ago with President Donald Trump now in office, questions have arisen regarding whether the time change is here to stay. Here's everything you need to know:
Some federal lawmakers have spearheaded efforts to end the time change altogether, saying such a move provides health benefits, gives the economy a boost and allows Americans to enjoy sunlight during their most productive hours.
In 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act, ending the twice-yearly clock change and making daylight saving time a year-round standard. However, the bill wasn't considered by House lawmakers, who prioritized other legislation instead.
Almost all states have considered legislation to stay on standard or daylight saving time, and 20 states have passed bills or resolutions to implement year-round daylight saving time in the last several years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But, because federal law currently does not allow for year-round daylight saving time, the states would have to wait for Congress to pass the bill in order to make the switch.
Prior to taking office for his second term, Trump said he wanted to eliminate the time change.
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In December, Trump wrote 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."
The U.S. adopted daylight saving time in March of 1918, but It was unpopular and abolished after World War I. Under the conditions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.
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In the U.S., daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks, running from early-to-mid March to the beginning of November in states that observe it.
Daylight saving time didn't become standard in the country until the passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which mandated standard time across the country within established time zones. It stated that clocks would advance one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turn back one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.
While some studies suggest that using daylight saving time year-round could reduce the number of traffic accidents and the amount of crime, a number of experts aren’t in favor of permanent daylight saving time.
That’s because the sun should reach the highest point in the sky at noon, according to sleep experts, which is known as solar time.
During standard time, people in the central time zone in the U.S. are aligned perfectly with solar time, but during daylight saving time, they are pushed further away from that clock.
Sleep experts prefer the back-and-forth of the clocks to permanent daylight saving time. When people wake up in darkness, hormones like cortisol might be higher, which might make people feel sleepier, Dr. Kin Yuen, a sleep medicine specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, and a fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said in 2022.
