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Note to all candidates for public office: the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25. It can vary by state, though, so be sure to check the Labor Department’s interactive map or, better yet, ask one of the one million workers currently earning it, or one of the millions earning even less.

If only Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut Linda McMahon had known. At a press conference yesterday, McMahon, of the professional wrestling McMahons, said: ”The minimum wage now in our country, I think we’ve set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage.” She then added that she would “look at all of those issues in terms of what mandates are being placed on businesses and can they afford them.”

OK. Let’s start a discuss. (While we’re at it, poverty advocates can explain why many conservative arguments against raising it aren’t all that valid.) The problem is what came out afterwards, when McMahon admitted that “she didn’t know what the current minimum wage is or if any of her employees at World Wrestling Entertainment are paid it.” The WWE is based in Connecticut, where the minimum wage is $8.25 per hour.

This is much bigger than a politician not knowing the price of a gallon of milk. (Though, note to all candidates for public office: it averages $3.31 a gallon these days nationwide.) Before beginning her campaign, on which she has spent more than $25 million of her own money, McMahon was the CEO of the WWE. She had 585 employees, excluding the wrestlers. But she had no idea what she paid them and thus whether they were paid enough to work full-time without needing food stamps.

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