Time in New York & Time in California: Time Change 2009 Confuses Consumers

The time in New York and the time in California is always different. The time in New York and time in California has both already experienced the end of Daylight Saving Time. The time change couldn't have come at a better time this year, giving everyone an extra hour to sleep off their Halloween party celebrations.

New York is under Eastern Standard Time. When it is Noon in New York, it's 11 a.m. in Chicago, 10 a.m in Denver, and 9 a.m. in Los Angeles. According to time.gov the names of the US Time Zones are Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

Daylight Saving Time was extended by a 2005 law that went into effect in 2007. Now, Daylight Saving Time begins a couple weeks earlier in the spring, and ends one week later in the fall. Under the old schedule, Daylight Saving time would have ended last Sunday, October 25. October 25 was when Daylight Saving Time ended in Europe, causing quite a bit of confusion in the United States.

Daylight Saving Time has always been controversial. First, the slang term "Daylight Savings Time" is more common than the correct term "Daylight Saving Time", causing a bunch of persnickety perfectionists to annoyingly correct every person that calls the day by its improper name.

Second, there is some question as to whether the purpose of Daylight Saving Time is legitimate. Energy conservation is the underlying premise of Daylight Saving time. Of course, back in the days of Benjamin Franklin, conserving candles through altering the time seemed smart. However, now critics argue that people will simply use more energy in the morning dark hours. The use is suspected to offset any energy savings experienced during the lighter night hours.

Despite confusion, we should be glad that at minimum, there's still some standard time zones. In the past, each locality was responsible for setting their own time. When the railroad companies couldn't come up with a coherent schedule, standard time was necessary.

Now, there's still not a complete standard time. Time zones are at least easy to schedule. However, when certain areas don't recognize Daylight Saving Time and when different countries change their time on different weeks, it can still be very, very confusing to keep up with.

We won't change our time back until March 2010. At least today we got an extra hour. Some of us will sleep a bit longer, others will use the extra hour to be productive. All that matters is we will start our next work week well rested.

Sources:

time.gov