Workers in New York and California are in a massive economic experiment

Joe Raedle/Getty Images In a less cynical age, the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that each of the 50 states that make up the U.S., "may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” These days, any reference to states as the “laboratories of Democracy” is as likely as not to be ironic — just Google the phrase plus the word “Kansas” if you need evidence. But every now and then, a st...