>>519481063
"Food stamps" is a slang colloquialism for what is today called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Oh, SNAP!). If your employment/income-to-children ratio is too low, you qualify for literally free money, but it could only be spent at grocery stores, presumably on food items. Since they couldn't just hand out cash that would be spent on basketball shoes and Starter gear, they were in the form of "stamps" sort of like ration coupons during wartime; you get so many per month per child. These days, they don't hand out stamps, they just give you a debit card called Electronic Benefit Transer (EBT), and you use that. Since it's electronical, they can control just what stores can accept it; again, presumably, grocery stores.