Trump’s Push to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

Legislative efforts to make daylight saving time permanent year round got a boost with support from President Donald Trump, who criticized the twice-yearly clock switching as cost-prohibitive.

But there is no strong evidence that Trump’s solution — switching permanently to daylight saving time — would provide the economic boost Trump suggests it would.

The Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent year round unless states opt out , was folded into a motor vehicle safety bill that passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on May 21 with a 48-1 vote .

Shortly after, Trump p o sted his support on Truth Social.

“This is so important in that Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks. Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!” Trump wrote.

“I am going to work very hard to see The Sunshine Protection Act signed into Law,” Trump added. “It’s time that people can stop worrying about the ‘Clock,’ not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production. It will also be a very nice WIN for the Republican Party. Take it! We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day — And who can be against that — This is an easy one!”

We should note that while Trump framed the legislation as a potential “WIN for the Republican Party,” the bill has bipartisan support (and bipartisan opposition, as well). But it would still need support from the House and then the Senate, plus the president’s signature, in order to pass. Similar past efforts in Congress have stalled.

A man wheels a 6-foot canister clock at the Electric Time Company. Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.

We could find no credible analysis of the cost of using heavy equipment to physically change municipal clocks located in towers, as the president mentioned. In fact, David Prerau, author of the 2005 book “ Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time ,” told us that in the decades he has spent researching and speaking publicly about daylight saving time, “no one has mentioned that particular point.” While there may be a cost to changing such municipal clocks, he said, it’s also “very rare” and the cost is negligible in the larger scheme of the topic.

A “back-of-the-envelope” calculation by an economist with the Independent Institute updated in 2013 by the American Enterprise Institute estimated the “opportunity cost” of daylight saving time at about $2 billion per year. The estimate assumed people spent 10 minutes twice a year changing their clocks, and it assigned a lost wages figure to that time. (We would note that many digital clocks nowadays automatically make the time shift, so the lost-time argument has dissipated over time.)

More commonly, though, economists have attempted to estimate the cost of switching back and forth between standard and daylight saving time related to impacts on health, driving and work. (Most of the country moves the clock forward by an hour on the second Sunday in March, and back an hour the first Sunday in November.)

For example, an analysis by Chmura Economics & Analytics, a labor market research firm, updated in 2024, looked at evidence of economic loss from peer-reviewed journals — increased heart attacks, strokes, workplace accidents and traffic accidents attributed to switching times — and concluded daylight saving time costs about $672 million annually in all U.S. metropolitan statistical areas.

Although extending daylight saving time is often touted as an energy-saver, a Department of Energy analysis in 2008 concluded, “The electricity savings are small compared to the national total for the year, representing about 0.03 percent of the total national electricity consumption.” Some other studies have also found a small electricity savings.

But still other studies have found the opposite. Research published in 2011 looked into the effect of daylight saving time in Indiana and concluded that “if anything, the policy seems to have the opposite of its intended effect” and that electricity demand increased about 1%.

Nevertheless, the authors wrote, “there are other arguments made in favor of DST. These range from increased opportunities for leisure, enhanced public health and safety, and economic growth.”

There’s another facet to the daylight saving debate: If you do away with switching back and forth, do you go with standard time or daylight saving time?

Weighing the Options

Trump himself appears to have been conflicted on which route is best.

On Dec. 13, 2024, he posted to 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 incon…