Staff photo / David Skolnick State Rep. Lauren McNally, center, speaks at a local Democratic event in opposition to U.S. Sen. Jon Husted. Among those joining her were Struthers Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller, left, and Dani Boatner of Girard, a single mother.

YOUNGSTOWN — Local Democrats criticized Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted for saying those “living in poverty” are “not very experienced at navigating the real world.”

State Rep. Lauren McNally of Youngstown, the Democratic candidate for Mahoning County commissioner, said: “Let me be clear: Ohioans don’t need a lecture on how to buy groceries. They need relief from the rising cost of groceries. They don’t need to be told affordability is just a ‘buzzword.’ They are living it every single day.”

Friday’s event at Wick Park Pavilion was the third on the Ohio Democratic Party’s “Husted’s Real World Tour,” at which local Democrats speak against Husted, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2025 and is seeking to fill the remainder of the unexpired term in the November general election. Sherrod Brown, a former three-term senator, is the Democratic front-runner for his party’s nomination.

During a March 10 podcast, Husted said he had a conversation with a woman who didn’t know “how money works at a grocery store” because she’s on government assistance.

Husted said: “People living in poverty are just not very, they’re not very experienced at navigating the real world.”

Husted said in a Jan. 16 interview with a radio station: “Our work ethic is broken. We don’t have the work ethic in this country that we once had.”

At Friday’s event, McNally said: “This is about people. It’s about our families, our friends, our communities. It’s about recognizing that the problem isn’t that Ohioans don’t understand the real world or have a ‘broken work ethic’ or just need to ‘earn more’ money to make ends meet – all things that Sen. Husted has said – the problem is that the real world has become too expensive for too many people to afford.”

Husted’s campaign declined Friday to comment.

Struthers Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller said: “Affordability is not a talking point. It is one of the most pressing concerns in our community. Families are dealing with rising grocery bills, higher utility costs, increasing rent and housing prices and the overall cost of simply getting by.”

Dani Boatner, a single mother from Girard, said: “We don’t want a handout. We want leadership that sees us, hears us and invests in us. Ironically, Jon Husted’s comments ignore the reality that Ohioans are facing, where wages haven’t kept pace with inflation making us work hard just to stay afloat. Jon Husted has spent all of his time in D.C. voting to make things more expensive for families like mine.”