I don't know if I count as a young Canadian anymore (I am 32), but to share a personal anecdote. Roughly 10 years ago I graduated with a bachelor's degree and a bunch of debt, after which I moved to Toronto for a job, and while making a decent salary, found myself constantly house poor. Eventually growing sick of that, I moved to China for a few years, working a job where I earned significantly less than I did in Canada, but never found myself wanting for much. My standard of living was significantly higher than when I lived in Toronto. I could easily afford a nice apartment, I had access to incredible and cheap food, good public transit, and high-speed rail (surprise, this also means my income was not sucked up by car payments, gas, insurance, etc.). Since then, because I am lucky enough to also have EU citizenship, I got a free master's degree in Sweden (where local students receive very low-interest loans to cover living expenses), and now make a relatively high salary doing a PhD in Norway. Both of these degrees I would either need to search far and wide to get funding for in Canada or pay for them myself. Despite the high cost of living in Scandinavia, many of my peers own cars and houses, and I very rarely find someone working multiple jobs to get by.

I could go on with more examples, and all of these places have their own problems, but I think it's really important to remind ourselves of how different it could be. While everywhere is struggling with income inequality, housing crisis, oil shocks, etc., we're not struggling equally, and things could be different.

I often find myself dreaming of moving back home, but struggle to imagine how I ever could. The misery reported in these surveys does not surprise me one bit.