Blank (1989) ignores interruptions in benefit receipt of up to three months in cases where she cannot link them to changes in employment status or income, and a similar approach is taken in most of the later work on the topic. This analysis takes a different approach by defining a benefit spell as a period during which a positive amount of benefits is observed for every single month. A spell is thus coded as having ended as soon as no further monthly benefit payment is recorded. The main motivation for this approach is that a large share of the observed benefit spells are of only short duration, and that it is not obvious why short spells on and off benefits should be treated asymmetrically.