Daylight Saving Time: Should We Abandon Or Keep It Year-Round? Survey

Americans seem to be divided on the merits of daylight saving time, which ends Sunday, Nov. 3, when most Americans (Hawaii and most of Arizona observe year-round standard time) will set their clocks back an hour.

Some people love an hour of daylight tacked on to the evening. Others don’t like getting up in the dark. The camp that wants to eliminate with the whole business of falling back and springing forward holds a majority viewpoint on the subject, according to several opinion polls.

Questions about what to do about daylight saving time have been kicked around in statehouses for decades. With rare unanimous support, the U.S. Senate passed a bill in 2023 to adopt daylight saving time as the year-round permanent time, but it’s gone nowhere in the House of Representatives.

The reasons for making daylight saving time the permanent year-round time are mainly economic, the premise being that if it stays light later in the evenings, people will be more likely to go out and spend money. A lobbyist for the nation’s convenience stores told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee last year that daylight saving time “is good for business and commerce” across the country.

Doctors and scientists maintain that standard time positively affects our health. Our internal clocks align better with morning light, which in turn improves our sleep cycles.

Polls over the years have shown a majority of Americans are weary of fiddling with their clocks twice a year.

A YouGov survey taken in March 2023 showed 62 percent of Americans favored eliminating the twice-a-year clock adjustments. That’s consistent with the results of a Monmouth University poll in 2022 that found 61 percent of Americans want to stop changing their clocks.

In 2019 an Associated Press-NORC poll found 71 percent of Americans want to stop fiddling with clocks. Only 28 percent wanted to continue the practice. Among the rest of Americans, 40 percent favored year-round standard time and 31 percent wanted year-round daylight saving time.

We want to know what Patch readers think. Would you prefer to use daylight saving time year-round, standard time year-round, or continue to switch back and forth between the two?

Just fill out our informal survey. And just a reminder — we don’t collect email addresses.

Editor’s note: This survey closed on Oct. 28.