-- More household formations;

-- Housing sales (for new and existing homes) are strong;

In many case, these measures are not where you might expect them to be in the 10th year of what is now the longest economic expansion in postwar history. This isn’t to suggest that these are portents of a tired economy beginning to run out of fuel, but rather, indicators of something more insidious -- larger, structural failures within the U.S. economy.

Don't be too quick to dismiss this as the result of the unholy trinity of labor woes: globalization, automation and decline of labor unions. These are well-known factors that have been keeping real wages in check for three decades.

Nor should we just blame the Great Recession and financial crisis for this state of affairs. We know that this is not the usual economic cycle, and that recoveries from financial crises take longer. No, something more fundamental seems to be in flux.

Yet there might be a much simpler explanation: The U.S. is nowhere near full employment.

There is a host of other data points that point to the underlying malaise of the labor market. Although not all of these are strictly economic measures, they include:

-- Long-term unemployment remains elevated;

-- A lot of people working part-time want full-time work;

-- Disability filings have increased dramatically;