With nearly 14 million workers, the restaurant industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing employers in the United States — and also the low- est-paying.1 The federal subminimum wage for tipped workers is just $2.13 an hour, leaving restaurant workers twice as likely as other workers to rely on food stamps to eat.2 Now, amid the government shutdown, about 2.1 million restaurant workers are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits — and, with them, their ability to feed their families.

These are the workers who power local economies by cooking and serving our food, yet they still can’t afford groceries themselves. As SNAP funding dries up, the people who feed America are being left to go hungry.