I think you are exactly correct. The government will likely try to compel food stores to accept pennies on the dollar in return for food and goods.
In fact, there is ample precedent for this with doctors and health care providers being paid pennies on the dollar for Medicaid and Medicare services. Right now this works because of both the health care provider's good will and because they can and do effectively subsidize those losses by charging others (private pay and private insurance)for those costs.
So, I agree, I don't think the EBT cards ever stop working and thereby having people point to the government as the source of the real problem. The government will try to force private businesses to find way to subsidize the force losses from EBT cards. Then the weakest (read: inner city) food stores will go down first and that's where the rioting will start and then expand.
There aren’t that many inter-city food stores now. Most large chains pulled out years ago.
They can "keep the EBT cards working," but they can't make the electronic digits worth anything if the currency has collapsed. You are mistaking flashing digits for value. Flashing digits do not always have value. An EBT card that "works" but conveys only digits that have no value, is no better than an EBT card honestly flashing zeroes.
Don’t be to sure about that ,the state of California has been sending out IOU’s to taxpayers instead of checks for tax refunds for years. Grocery stores refuse to cash them & banks & credit unions / savings & loans also were refusing to cash them or accept them for deposit.
The State of California is in even worse shape with regard to its finances than ever before.