On this day in 1964, President Johnson signed the Food Stamp Act, establishing the Federal food stamp program to help low-income families improve their diet.
"I believe the Food Stamp Act weds the best of the humanitarian instincts of the American people with the best of the free enterprise system.” -Lyndon B. Johnson
President Johnson called the program, "one of our most valuable weapons for the war on poverty," noting that during three years of pilot operations the program had "raised the diets of low-income families substantially while strengthening markets for the farmer and immeasurably improving the volume of retail food sales."
Source USDA Legislative History
