Republican Bernie Moreno opposes existence of minimum wage

U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno doesn’t believe there should be a minimum wage.

Moreno, a car dealership tycoon and early cryptocurrency investor, expressed this view during a Republican primary debate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. If he clinches the nomination, he’ll challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November. 

The moderator asked point blank if the minimum wage should exist.

“The markets are the best way to determine what wages should be,” Moreno said. “As somebody who has employed thousands of people here in Ohio, a good business owner knows that you pay good benefits, you pay good wages, you get good people. At the end of the day the market will flush that out.”

Ohio’s minimum wage for non-tipped employees increased on Jan. 1 from $10.10 to $10.45 an hour. For tipped workers it’s $5.25. Some smaller businesses in Ohio are permitted to pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Moreno’s claims about being a good employer conflict with his record.

Between 2017 and 2022, at least seventeen of Moreno’s employees sued him for wage theft, claiming Moreno failed to properly compensate them for overtime work. In 2021, a judge sanctioned Moreno for destroying financial documents pertinent to the allegations. A jury ultimately ruled that Moreno had stiffed the original plaintiffs and Moreno was ordered to pay them more than $400,000 in damages.

Moreno settled most of the additional wage theft lawsuits out of court in the months preceding his senate campaign. 

In 2023, Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced legislation to crack down on wage theft. In 2021, Brown celebrated a Biden administration rule raising the minimum wage for federal workers to $15.00 an hour. In a statement, Brown called for raising the minimum wage for all workers.

Moreno has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Ohio’s Republican primary will be held on March 19.