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Support for Daylight Saving Time Drops Among Americans
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Support for Daylight Saving Time Drops Among Americans

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ProCon Debate: Should the United States Keep Daylight Saving Time (DST)?

ProCon Issue in the News: A January 2025 Gallup poll shows that support for DST has dropped to 40 percent in the United States.

As Encyclopædia Britannica explains, DST is the “system for uniformly advancing clocks, so as to extend daylight hours during conventional waking time in the summer months. In countries in the Northern Hemisphere, clocks are usually set ahead one hour in late March or in April and are set back one hour in late September or in October. The practice was first suggested in a whimsical essay by Benjamin Franklin in 1784.”

Daylight Saving Time?
Daylight Saving Time?What's the point of Daylight Saving Time?

According to the Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans are not in favor of DST, while 6 percent are not sure of their position on the matter. Support for DST is slightly higher among Democrats (44 percent) than Republicans (34 percent), and those living in lower-income households (53 percent) support DST more than those in middle-income (35 percent) and higher-income (33 percent) homes. Other categories (age and education) were about equal in support (in the 37–42 percent range).

When asked what they would prefer, 24 percent answered that they would rather have DST the whole year, while 48 percent favored Standard Time the whole year. Only 19 percent would keep the current practice of changing the time twice a year.

Discussion Questions

  1. Should the United States keep DST? Why or why not?
  2. Look into the benefits and consequences of keeping the current system, switching to DST all year, or returning to Standard Time all year. What did you find?
  3. If the United States were to stop changing clocks biannually, which would you prefer: DST or Standard Time? Explain your answer.

Source

  • Mary Claire Evans and Jeffrey M. Jones, “More Than Half in U.S. Want Daylight Saving Time Sunsetted” (March 4, 2025), news.gallup.com