Our annual extra hour of sleep is coming a bit earlier this year than last year, on Nov. 2. That’s when daylight saving time ends for 2025 and we set our clocks back one hour.
Back on March 9, we set our clocks ahead one hour, part of the daylight saving practice that has been observed in the U.S. in some form since 1918. It was intended as a cost-saving measure and to provide an extra hour of sunlight at night during the spring and summer and an extra hour of light in the morning during the fall and winter months, per the Farmer’s Almanac.
Exactly when clocks “fall back” and “spring forward” has changed over the years. As of 2007, it begins at 2 a.m. at the second Sunday in March – pushing the clock forward to 3 a.m. – and ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November, pushing the clock back to 1 a.m.
Last year, daylight saving time ended on Nov. 3. Next year, it will start on Mach 8 end even earlier, on Nov. 1.
Some people have called for the U.S. to stop observing daylight saving time altogether, citing health and business concerns. This April, Audacy reported that senators even attended a hearing on the matter, titled “If I Could Turn Back Time: Should We Lock the Clock?”
If the U.S. stopped flipping the clocks, we would have a choice to make: keep daylight saving time (what we have from March through November) all year or keep standard time yearlong. During the April hearing, Jay Karen, CEO of the National Golf Course Owners Association advocated for permanent DST to allow more time for activities such as golf. Meanwhile, Dr. Karin Johnson, practicing physician and professor of Neurology at UMass Chan School of Medicine Baystate (on behalf of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine), said permanent ST would be a healthier option.
Previously, President Donald Trump (an avid golfer and golf course owner) said he would support getting rid of daylight saving time.
According to results from a poll of 1,006 U.S. adults conducted earlier this year by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CPOR) at Stetson University, 75% said they supported an end to moving the clocks twice a year. Those results also showed that 54% would prefer to keep DST all year, which would provide more evening sunlight.
Gallup polling from around the same time also found that a majority of respondents (54%) support ending moving the clocks back and forth, with a significant decline in support observed since 1999. However, a plurality (48%) said they would prefer standard time year round, while just 24% said they would prefer daylight saving time year-round.
There are already some areas that don’t observe daylight savings time. Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands don’t turn the clocks, as well as most of Arizona, with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation.