Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend. Wasn’t it supposed to be abolished?

While most Angeleños are asleep Sunday at 2 a.m., the clocks will jump forward by an hour. Some may miss the sleep, but for others, an extra hour of sunlight in the evening is worth the once-a-year cost.

The question remains, however: why do we still need to do this? Studies have found the consequences of the shift — from missed sleep to upset circadian rhythms — result in increases of social ills including heart attacks and car crashes. The time change is also deeply unpopular. A Gallup poll published Tuesday found just 19% of respondents favored keeping it.

Accordingly, in 2018, Californians overwhelmingly passed Proposition 7, which allowed the State Legislature to move to either permanent Daylight Saving Time or permanent Standard Time — though the former is currently prohibited by federal law. In 2023, the federal Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would have moved all states to permanent DST except the ones which currently use Standard Time year-round. Despite this, neither act has succeeded in abolishing the time change.

The problem is that a clear majority cannot be established for either permanent DST or permanent Standard Time. The same Gallup poll found 48% of Americans would prefer to maintain Standard Time all year, resulting in earlier sunrises and sunsets, while 24% would prefer to preserve DST. Just 19% of respondents favoured the current system. Meanwhile, A poll from 2023 found that Americans strongly prefer DST when specifically told that it would result in later sunsets. Proponents of year-round DST say it would result in more usable daylight. 

On Sunday, the sun will set at 6:56 p.m. in Los Angeles, an hour later than the day before. For those who leave work at 5 p.m., the available daylight in the evening will double. That means more time to see friends, exercise outdoors, and take in the city’s lush scenery.

However, those who want to maintain earlier sunrises in the summer months have medical opinion on their side. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Standard Time more closely aligns with humans’ circadian rhythms. Daylight in the evening can disrupt sleep patterns and lead to symptoms mimicking depression, while waking up long before sunrise may result in fatigue.

Though early sunsets in the winter often make us feel glum, a study from the Center for Environmental Therapeutics shows it is morning sunlight which is most important for fighting wintertime depression. The researchers found a vastly higher occurrence of Seasonal Affective Disorder in places which sit in the east of their time zones, and which therefore have later sunrises and sunsets.

At the same time, year-round Standard Time may result in hours of wasted sunlight during the summer months. In L.A.currently, the sun rises in June at around 5:45 a.m., shortly before people begin to wake up. If California abolished DST, it would rise at 4:45 a.m., when very few would be awake to take advantage of it. Proponents of the current system claim it maximizes the amount of daylight people receive while awake. The current system allows us to take advantage of long days in the summer without suffering the worst effects of winter darkness.

Lawmakers, caught between valid arguments on all sides of the debate, have frozen. While Prop. 7 gave the Legislature the power to move away from summer-only DST, it did not mandate they do so. As a result, there has been no move towards a permanent solution. Something similar happened in Congress, where the House refused to even vote on the Sunshine Protection Act. While President Donald Trump has promised to revert the nation to permanent Standard Time, his administration has made no attempt to meet this goal so far.

The clocks are expected to move forward on Sunday morning, exactly as they have every year for decades. While this is not popular, it may be better than any one alternative.