{
  "type": "fact",
  "url": "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/americans-sleep-more-than-in-2003",
  "title": "Americans spend more time asleep than they did 20 years ago, not less",
  "claim": "In the American Time Use Survey, the average American aged 15+ spent 9.03 hours a day sleeping in 2025, up from 8.57 hours in 2003, about 28 minutes more. The rise was steady before the pandemic too (8.84 hours in 2019).",
  "description": "BLS time diaries show Americans' daily sleep time rose from 8.57 h in 2003 to 9.03 h in 2025, despite the \"sleep loss epidemic\" story.",
  "confidence": "solid",
  "published": "2026-10-14",
  "context": "This is self-reported time in a diary, and ATUS \"sleeping\" includes naps, dozing and lying awake trying to sleep, so\nthe level (about 9 hours) is higher than sleep measured by a device. The trend is the interesting part: the same\nsurvey, asked the same way every year, shows time spent sleeping going up, not down: slowly from 2003 to 2019,\nthen a step up in the pandemic years that has not reversed. It fits with [the lack of clear evidence for a decline](/data/sleep/sleep-duration-has-not-declined) in\nobjectively measured sleep.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
      "sampleSize": "258,954 respondents, one diary day each, 2003–2025",
      "title": "American Time Use Survey 2003–2025 multi-year microdata",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/data/datafiles-0325.htm",
      "year": 2026
    },
    {
      "authors": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
      "title": "American Time Use Survey, Table A-1 (published annual estimates)",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables.htm"
    }
  ],
  "method": "Weighted average of minutes per day coded as sleeping (ATUS codes 0101: sleeping, sleeplessness, sleeping n.e.c.), using BLS final weights (TUFNWGTP; TU20FWGT for 2020). Computed by this site from the microdata and checked against BLS's published 'Sleeping' estimates, which match to two decimals in all 22 published years. 2020 is a partial year (no diaries for Mar 18–May 9) and BLS published no annual figure for it.",
  "chart": {
    "data": [
      {
        "hours": 8.57,
        "year": 2003
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.55,
        "year": 2004
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.62,
        "year": 2005
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.63,
        "year": 2006
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.57,
        "year": 2007
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.6,
        "year": 2008
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.67,
        "year": 2009
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.67,
        "year": 2010
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.71,
        "year": 2011
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.73,
        "year": 2012
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.74,
        "year": 2013
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.8,
        "year": 2014
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.83,
        "year": 2015
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.79,
        "year": 2016
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.8,
        "year": 2017
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.82,
        "year": 2018
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.84,
        "year": 2019
      },
      {
        "hours": 9,
        "year": 2020
      },
      {
        "hours": 8.95,
        "year": 2021
      },
      {
        "hours": 9.02,
        "year": 2022
      },
      {
        "hours": 9.07,
        "year": 2023
      },
      {
        "hours": 9.04,
        "year": 2024
      },
      {
        "hours": 9.03,
        "year": 2025
      }
    ],
    "note": "atus-sleep dataset, trend table. 2020 is a partial year (COVID-19 suspension of data collection) and not an official annual estimate.",
    "title": "Average time spent sleeping per day, Americans 15+, 2003–2025",
    "type": "line",
    "unit": "h",
    "x": "year",
    "y": "hours",
    "yLabel": "Hours per day"
  },
  "dataset": "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/datasets/atus-sleep",
  "ranking": "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/sleep-by-age",
  "related": [
    "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/sleep-duration-has-not-declined",
    "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/hunter-gatherers-sleep-less",
    "https://karelbusta.dev/data/sleep/melatonin-use-rose-fivefold"
  ]
}