My alarm went off this morning at 6:30 like it does every weekday, but something was different today. I was noticeably more tired than I normally would be at and it was much darker than usual outside.
Unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii, you probably had a similar experience this weekend as the country collectively shifted its clocks one hour forward in observance of daylight savings time, the bi-annual tradition of causing avoidable problems and making people ornery.
Why we change our clocks
The reason we have daylight savings time is that in the summer months, there is an excess of daylight. People thought that it would be nice since the sun rose before many workers began their days to take an hour of sunlight away from the morning and give it to the evening so people could stay out later.
Additionally, it is commonly thought that daylight savings reduces our energy consumption because we can rely less on electric light during the summer months. In fact, savings from electric light consumption were cited as the original reason that Germany first implemented daylight savings time during the first world war.
However, if you live in a northern state near the eastern edge of a timezone, this may not be quite so appealing in the winter months. Residents of the town of Fortuna, ND wouldn’t see the sunrise until almost 10:00 am on the shortest days of the year if they had permanent daylight time.
What happens when we change our clocks
While switching between daylight and standard time seems like the best of both worlds, it comes at the cost of everyone collectively feeling more drowsy than usual twice a year. These disruptions to our circadian rhythm have very tangible costs.
Studies have found that this switch leads to modest increases in cardiovascular problems, and it has led to more fatal car crashes. Add to that the fact that this drowsiness leads to short-term losses in productivity and it starts to seem like switching isn’t such a good idea after all.
In 2023, we conducted a cost-benefit analysis of ending daylight savings time in Ohio. We estimated that these two switches cost the state about $40 million per year.
Standard time or daylight time
If we decide we no longer want to change our clocks twice a year, we will then need to agree on what time it should be. In our study, we found that there are benefits to both permanent standard time and permanent daylight time.
Permanent standard time means more light in the morning and less in the evenings. A study looking at daylight savings time in Indiana found that contrary to popular belief, daylight savings actually increased energy use. While this study did find that electric light use decreased because of daylight savings time, that reduction was outweighed by increased costs associated with heating and cooling. This means that by adopting permanent standard time, we’d expect the amount of energy we consume to actually decrease over the course of a year.
The main benefit of permanent daylight time is that the sunlight lasts later into the evening. One notable effect this has is a reduction in crime due to the shift of light later into the evening.
From a cost-benefit perspective, we find that these two benefits are roughly equivalent to each other. It’s a fascinating policy analytic case where there really isn’t a clear winner, but rather a matter of preference.
Either way, it’s clear the costs of changing each year outweigh the benefits. To those who might balk at the change, worrying about the sun not rising till almost midday or setting in the early afternoon, I offer this advice: move closer to the equator.
Until humans develop a way to slow the rotation of the earth, we won’t be able to actually change the amount of sunlight we get each day. Shifting it around might make us feel like we have some control over the sun, but at the end of the day if you live farther north in this country you get less daylight. If policymakers accept this fact and stop messing with people’s sleep schedules each year, the economy and its participants will thank them.