Daylight saving time exists because governments wanted to squeeze more usable daylight into evening hours, originally to save energy during wartime. The United States first adopted it in 1918 during World War I, following Germany’s lead, under the logic that shifting clocks forward would reduce the need for artificial lighting and cut fuel costs. Over a century later, the reasons we still do it have less to do with energy and more to do with economics, habit, and political inertia.
The Wartime Origins
Germany was the first country to adopt daylight saving time in 1916, reasoning that aligning waking hours with sunlight would conserve coal and other resources for the war effort. The U.S. followed two years later when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Standard Time Act on March 19, 1918. The law added an hour of evening daylight, officially framed as a way to reduce energy costs during World War I.
The idea wasn’t entirely new. Benjamin Franklin had floated something similar in a 1784 essay while living in Paris, though his proposal was pure satire. He suggested taxing window shutters, rationing candles to one pound per week, and firing cannons in every street at sunrise to wake “the sluggards.” Franklin never proposed moving clocks. He was poking fun at Parisians who slept through perfectly good morning sunlight and then burned expensive candles at night.
After WWI ended, daylight saving time was so unpopular that Congress repealed it in 1919, overriding a presidential veto. It returned during World War II and was again branded as a wartime measure. The modern version Americans live with today didn’t take shape until the Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized the practice nationwide.
Farmers Never Wanted It
One of the most persistent myths is that daylight saving time was created to help farmers. The opposite is true. The agriculture industry actively lobbied against it in 1919 and was part of the reason it was repealed after the first World War. Some historians believe the association stuck precisely because farmers were so vocal in the debate, even though they were fighting against it.
The reason is practical. Farm schedules revolve around the sun and the biology of animals, not the clock on the wall. Dairy cows accustomed to being milked at 5:00 a.m. can’t understand why their farmer is suddenly an hour late in the fall or an hour early in the spring. The milk truck, however, still arrives at its scheduled clock time, so farmers can’t simply adjust to keep things consistent for their animals. Farmworkers face a similar bind: if they have to wait an extra hour for daylight to begin working but still leave at the same clock time, less work gets done. Most farmers would rather let the sun and the seasons dictate their schedule.
The Real Beneficiaries Are Industries
If the energy savings argument has weakened over time (and it has, since modern electricity use is driven by air conditioning and electronics, not candles), the economic argument has only gotten louder. Extended evening daylight means people go outside, spend money, and drive more.
The golf industry has been one of the most enthusiastic lobbyists. In the 1980s, golf industry groups estimated that a single extra month of daylight saving time would generate $200 million more per year in green fees and equipment sales. The barbecue industry made a similar pitch to Congress in 1986, claiming an additional month would mean $100 million more in grill and charcoal briquette sales annually.
Candy companies got in on it too. In 1986, they pushed to extend daylight saving time into November so that Halloween would fall within it, giving trick-or-treaters an extra hour of evening light to collect more candy. They eventually got their wish: since 2007, daylight saving time has ended in early November rather than late October. And the petroleum industry has understood since at least the 1930s that more evening daylight means more driving and more gasoline sales. As author Michael Downing put it, people go out more when there’s more daylight, and that means filling up their tanks more often.
The Health Cost of Switching Clocks
The twice-yearly clock change takes a measurable toll on the body. A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies found that heart attack risk increases by about 4% in the days following the spring transition, when clocks move forward and people lose an hour of sleep. The fall transition, when clocks move back, showed no significant change in heart attack risk.
That 4% may sound small, but spread across an entire population it represents thousands of additional cardiac events. The spring shift also correlates with increases in traffic accidents and workplace injuries during the adjustment period, as millions of people operate on roughly an hour less sleep than their bodies expect.
The core issue is circadian disruption. Your internal clock is set primarily by sunlight, and when clock time shifts abruptly, your body doesn’t adjust overnight. It can take several days to a full week for sleep patterns, hormone cycles, and alertness levels to catch up. This is why sleep scientists have taken a firm stance on the issue.
Why Sleep Scientists Want Permanent Standard Time
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has issued a clear position: the U.S. should eliminate seasonal time changes entirely and adopt permanent standard time. Not permanent daylight saving time. Standard time, they argue, aligns best with human circadian biology because morning light is the most powerful signal for resetting the body’s internal clock. Under permanent daylight saving time, winter mornings would stay dark even later than they already do, potentially worsening sleep deprivation for months.
This distinction matters because most of the political energy in the U.S. has pushed in the opposite direction. The Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent year-round, has been reintroduced in Congress multiple times, most recently in January 2025. It passed the Senate unanimously in 2022 but stalled in the House, and it has not become law. The appeal is obvious: people love long summer evenings. But the health community warns that locking in late sunrises during winter would trade one problem (the jarring clock switch) for another (chronic circadian misalignment).
Most of the World Doesn’t Bother
The majority of countries on Earth do not observe daylight saving time. It’s primarily a practice of North America, Europe, and parts of South America and Oceania. In the last decade alone, Azerbaijan, Iran, Jordan, Namibia, Russia, Samoa, Syria, Turkey, and Uruguay have all abandoned their seasonal clock changes. Within Europe, only a handful of countries on the continent’s eastern edge never adopted it in the first place, including Russia, Turkey, Belarus, and Iceland.
In the U.S., Hawaii and most of Arizona already skip daylight saving time, along with several territories including Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Countries near the equator have never had much reason to adopt it, since their daylight hours barely fluctuate between seasons.
One Small Grammar Note
The correct term is “daylight saving time,” not “daylight savings time.” There’s no “s” on “saving.” The phrase “daylight saving” functions as an adjective describing the type of time, not a noun like a savings account. The confusion seems to have started in the 1970s and has been persistent ever since, but every piece of federal legislation uses the singular form.