Study: Daylight Saving costs Mobile $2.30 per capita

Thu, March 7, 04:55pm

Written By: Kelli Dugan kduganalcom

Published By: PRESS-REGISTER

MOBILE, Alabama â€" You might want to think twice before hitting that drive-thru as you race to wherever you're headed Sunday morning, late because you forgot about Daylight Saving time.

Virginia-based Chmura Economics & Analytics crunched the numbers at the request of SleepBetter.org and revealed the annual “spring forward” practice costs Mobile a minimum of $967,710, or $2.30 per capita, for the lost hour.

Time is slated to move ahead by one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 10.

The Chmura ranking places the Port City at 27th among 361 metropolitan statistical areas studied and first among all Alabama and Mississippi MSAs included in the study. The figures are based on 2010 U.S. Census data as it compares to several time-related studies published in peer-reviewed journals.

Specifically, the studies examined daylight saving time in relation to the incidence of heart attacks, workplace injury in the mining and construction industries and increases in the practice of cyberloafing, or the as much as 80 percent of Internet time the average worker spends distracted from the work of the day.

In turn, Chmura created the “Lost-Hour Economic Index,” and Mobile ranks more than twice as high on the list as its nearest Alabama or Mississippi counterpart.

Birmingham ranks 69th with a total negative economic impact of more than $2.4 million, yet only $2.12 per capita. Results for other Alabama and Mississippi MSAs are clustered closely behind and are as follows:

Huntsville loses $890,913, or $2.10 per capita, for a ranking of 75th

Montgomery loses $798, 364, or $2.09 per capita, for a ranking of 77th

Gulfport-Biloxi loses $528,298, or $2.08 per capita, for a ranking of 78th

Anniston loses $250,003, or $2.07 per capita, for a ranking of 80th

Florence loses $308,807, or $2.06 per capita, for a ranking of 84th

Auburn-Opelika loses $293,975, or $2.06 per capita, for a ranking of 85th

Dothan loses $297,824, or $2.02 per capita, for a ranking of 97th

Pascagoula loses $330,101, or $2.00 per capita, for a ranking of 103rd

According to Chmura, the national average for Daylight Saving impact is nearly $434 million, or $1.65 per capita.

Morgantown, W. Va., ranks first per capita at $3.38, followed closely by the Huntington-Ashland area in the tri-state area of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio at $3.18 and Parkersburg-Marietta, also straddling West Virginia and Ohio, at $3.15. Provo-Oren, Utah, ranks last at $0.97 per capita.

SleepBetter.org is a product of Richmond, Va.-based Carpenter Co., a privately held manufacturer of flexible polyurethane foam, processed polyester fiber and many other types of related products used primarily in bedding and furniture foam as well as carpeting cushion, consumer products, expanded polystyrene, air filtration media, polyether polyols, chemical systems, and tire fill.

Read more: http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2013/03/study_daylight_saving_costs_mo.html