In this brief, we use administrative data from one state's child care subsidy program to demonstrate how the overall patterns of subsidy continuity are influenced by the time unit used and by the definition of the end of a subsidy spell. The examples presented here demonstrate that the proportion of children with short spells varies depending on the spell definition. The length of subsidy spells can vary substantially based on the definition of a break, because many children have short interruptions in subsidy receipt. Furthermore, we show that one must be cautious in comparing results about subsidy continuity across states that use different time units. In our example, the median spell length using monthly data was longer by approximately one month compared to the median based on weekly data. Additionally, a four-week break in subsidy participation is not equivalent to a break of one calendar month when developing measures of continuity. (author abstract)