While most states observe the spring forward / fall back switch in time, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and Arizona do not change the clock. In 2007, Congress voted to switch the end of daylight saving time to the first Sunday in November to offer trick-or-treaters more daylight time to venture into the streets, even though most children wait until after dark to go out anyway. Again in 1986, Congress declared that DST would begin at 2 AM on the first Sunday in April and end at 2 AM on the last Sunday in October. But Congress can’t seem to resist tinkering with it.įor example, in 1973 Daylight Saving Time was observed all year, instead of just the spring and summer. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided the basic framework for alternating between Daylight Saving Time and standard time, which we now observe in the United States.

As you can imagine, this just caused a lot of confusion, especially for travelers and those of us in the news business. The same thing happened during World War II.Īfter the war, states individually chose whether to observe daylight saving time and when they wanted to begin it during the year. The idea didn’t really catch on in the United States until World War I, in an effort to save on artificial lighting costs. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country’s electricity usage by about 1% EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time.īenjamin Franklin proposed Daylight Saving Time as an American delegate in Paris in 1784. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. In the average home, 25% of all the electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos. When we go to bed, we turn off the lights and TV. Bedtime for most of us is late evening through the year. In general, energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up.

Newer studies, however, are challenging long-held reason. One of the biggest reasons we change our clocks to Daylight Saving Time (DST) is that it reportedly saves electricity. Why do we observe Daylight Saving Time? The simple answer is to save on energy costs. Sunday by turning back clocks to Standard Time. Most of the United States, including New Orleans, will gain an hour at 2 a.m. The return to Standard Time is a great reminder to change the batteries in your smoke detectors, too. (WGNO) – To be on time for your Sunday activities, remember to turn your clocks back one hour. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.

When does time go back