Shedding Light on Daylight Saving Time

In this report, the JPMorgan Chase Institute measures the impacts of Daylight Saving Time (DST) on consumer spending. Using a sample of over 380 million daily credit and debit card transactions, made by over 2.5 million de-identified customers, we compared consumer spending in Los Angeles, a city that observes DST, to that of Phoenix, a city that does not observe DST. We organize our results into three findings. First, the onset of DST in Los Angeles increases daily card spending per capita by 0.9 percent, while the end of DST reduces daily card spending per capita by 3.5 percent. Second, in Los Angeles, DST is more likely to be associated with changes in daily card spending per capita directed towards goods rather than services. Third, daily card spending per capita in Los Angeles drops significantly more during the work week in response to the end of DST. This report indicates that economic impact of DST is not uniform; the impact on a given city is an empirical question. It is also important to note that there are other reasons to support DST beyond the impacts on consumer spending