I see your point of view, but there is the small possibility of an individual or family being rebated more than they spend on new necessities, a self sufficent hunter/fisherman/farmer living basically offf the land and being thifty by buying as much used articles as possible....
The sportsman is sending X amount of hours each month in the streams or hunting woods or the home vegetable garden. They do their work in those locations rather than at a job that gives them a paycheck for their labor.
Here's the long version:
Suppose forty hours of work each month at a desk job pays the monthly food bill and that the food bill is $738 dollars a month plus the 23% retail sales tax ($170) for a total $908 "out of pocket" monthly food bill.. Thus his forty hours at a desk job pays him $908. Then he applies his $170 prebate check by subtracting it from the $908 total and his out of pocket cost for his monthly food bill is $738. In effect, he spent $908 dollars he got from forty hours of work and ends up with a month's worth of food plus $170 dollars in his pocket.
Let's do similar for the vegetable gardener and assume he buys no food. It takes the vegetarian forty hours of work in his garden to harvest a month's worth of food. The vegetable gardener's forty hours of garden work is the equivalent of $908 if he was getting a paycheck to work in his garden. But instead of getting a paycheck, the fruits of his forty-hours labor is his monthly supply of food, not $908. The garden then applies his prebate check to his forty hours labor and he in effect ends up with a month's worth of food plus $170 dollars in his pocket.
Both men's labor has value. One trades his desk-job labor for money from his employer which he then trades the money for food with the grocer. The other person/gardener works directly creating/producing his food and trades with no other party, neither an employer or grocer. At the end of the month they each have one month's worth of food and $170 dollars in their pocket.