Blank (1989) reports in her analysis of AFDC-receipt in Denver and Seattle that 62% of the completed spells for a household ended within a year, with an average duration of benefit payments of 13 months. She however does not include the 36% of right-censored spells in these calculations, which generally have a longer duration until censoring. Fitzgerald (1991) calculates a much longer median AFDC benefit spell length of 20 months over a shorter observation period (32 months), but calculates a median spell duration of 11-12 months for receipt of AFDC and Food Stamps in a follow-up study (Fitzgerald, 1995).28 Also Hoynes (2000) reports longer AFDC spell lengths for California, where 46% of spells end within 12 months and 62% end within 24 months.