When Does the Time Change? Fall Back Sparks Confusion About Clocks

Summer is officially reaching its end, and as fall begins there can be confusion over when clocks will "fall back" with the change in season.

Saturday will mark the first day of fall, otherwise known as the autumnal equinox. That means September 23 will be the one day in 2023 when day and night are approximately the same length across the world. Starting Sunday, the days will continue to get shorter heading into the winter and become noticeably short once the time change takes effect in November.

This year, daylight saving time will end November 5, meaning that clocks need to be shifted back an hour starting at 2 a.m. For most, this means an extra hour of sleep, but it will also mean an earlier sunset until the clocks "spring forward" in March.

While the U.S. has long been accustomed to changing the clocks with the seasons, more than 175 countries across the world keep their summer hours year-round. There's also been a recent push, from both the American public and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, for the U.S. to do away with daylight saving time.

"This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid," Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the Sunshine Protection Act in the Senate, said in March. "Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support."

In 2023 alone, at least 29 states have considered or are considering keeping daylight saving time permanent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Almost all of the states have considered legislation over the last several years that would place the state permanently on either standard time or daylight saving time," the NCSL website states.

It continues: "Since 2015, at least 450 bills and resolutions have been introduced in virtually every state, but none of significance passed until 2018, when Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe DST, pending amendment of federal law to permit such action."

Nearly 20 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions that would make summertime hours permanent, but those measures cannot take effect without congressional action because federal law does not allow full-time daylight saving time. Those states are Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Hawaii and most of Arizona, as well as the U.S. territories, observe permanent standard time. Arizona's Navajo Nation in the northeastern corner of the state does observe daylight saving time.

Polls indicate there is broad support for keeping daylight saving time year-round. A 2022 CBS News/YouGov shows that 46 percent of Americans support having summer hours year-round, while 33 percent want winter hours to be permanent. Only 21 percent wanted to keep things as they are.

For Rubio's Sunshine Protection Act, which was approved by the Senate earlier this year, to go into effect, the legislation would need to pass the House and be signed into law by President Joe Biden.