Permanent Daylight Saving Time Benefits Everyone

With less than two weeks until the midterm elections, the list of issues that divides Americans is long. And it’s only continuing to grow by the day.

However, there is one cause that unites voters of all ideologies, ranging the gambit from conservative to liberal and everything in-between. It’s the effort to make daylight saving time (DST) a permanent thing.

According to a YouGov poll conducted in March, nearly 60% of Americans want to put an end to the time changing woes. Clearly, an overwhelming majority supports ditching the interruption-producing, twice-a-year clock dance.

But it’s not just a popular idea among voters.

Since 2015, state legislatures have passed over 450 bills or resolutions intended to enshrine year-round DST, assuming a federal law is passed to allow it. In total, 19 states have enacted legislation to adopt year-round DST.

The U.S. Senate seems to have taken notice of the national sentiment. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 last winter, which would make DST permanent starting in 2023.

Under Rubio’s legislation, the two states that currently opt-out from DST, Arizona and Hawaii, would not be required to begin observing DST.

In a rare legislative feat for the Senate these days, Rubio’s bill passed with a unanimous vote. Yes, you read that right. Every U.S. senator voted in favor of its passage!

Why then, has the House of Representatives refused to take up this legislation? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is on record supporting the measure, as are dozens of her Democratic colleagues.

Even Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, the very committee such legislation would need to be introduced in, admitted that a “disproportionate amount” of her constituents were in favor of the measure.

Schakowsky further noted that “almost” all the feedback she heard from voters in her district was positive.

And why wouldn’t it be? As it stands, the biannual tradition of switching clocks is detrimental to America’s health and welfare, to the point where it causes actual deaths.

The simple act of moving our clocks forward in March causes a 24% uptick in heart attacks nationwide. There’s also enough evidence to suggest a slight uptick during the week our clocks fall back in November.

Permanent DST would avoid these unfortunate spikes, as well as help protect the millions of Americans who commute at night. Nearly all studies show that the evening rush hour is more dangerous and fatal for drivers than the morning hours, with deadly vehicle and pedestrian accidents tripling when there’s no light.

With an extra hour of sunlight each evening, the chance of being involved in a fatal accident would decrease. Mornings would become slightly more perilous, but evenings would become much safer, saving up to 400 souls a year.

DST as currently designed also wreaks havoc on America’s economy.

Economists estimate that moving our clocks forward each year costs the American economy $434 million. It turns out that losing an hour of sleep in a nation that is already sleep deprived leads to a sizeable loss of productivity in the days following the time change.

Financial markets are victims of the current DST arrangement as well. The NYSE and NASDAQ generally post negative returns on the Monday trading day following each time switch. Once again, the disruption in sleep cycles seems to be the culprit.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! With permanent DST, there would be a number of benefits that everyone could enjoy.

For starters, it would tremendously help the nation’s economy. Americans are far less likely to shop when it’s dark out. By adopting DST on a permanent basis, shoppers would have more time after work to peruse brick-and-mortar stores with the sun still out, a fact not lost on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which favors extended DST.

Crime would also decrease under year-round DST. More sunlight in the evening would deter criminal activities, especially among juveniles, who traditionally engage in mischief in the early evening hours.

Crime rates are simply much lower when there’s light out, with one study indicating that crime decreases by 30% when there’s sunlight present.

The current Congress has rightly been criticized for playing partisan politics. The Sunshine Protection Act is a chance to do something odd in Washington.

It’s an opportunity for our elected officials to pass something that’s popular, bipartisan and good for both the nation and its citizenry.

And who doesn’t need a little more sunshine in their life?