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By Lina Toyoda and Paul Luke

Maybe you should just skip young adulthood — it could be the worst time of your financial life.

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Many of Canada’s 20-to-35-year-olds are in crisis, reeling from a uniquely vicious financial assault, new studies show.

They’re staggering under debts, fighting to get a toehold in the housing market and watching their household incomes shrink.

The Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of B.C. calls young adults “Generation Squeeze,” reflecting the pressures that mount as their living standard slumps.

“There is a silent generational crisis occurring in homes across Canada,” the partnership says in a recent study. “We are talking about a massive social and economic change — one akin to a silent but no less damaging earthquake in our environment.”

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Experts in personal finance pin the blame for young adults’ plight on an unholy trinity: poor role modelling by parents, lavish spending, and the economic pressures of out-of-reach house prices, dwindling real income and daunting student loans.