Yes, in the sense that it is 10% genuine social change and 90% desire for a snappy title to sell books/journalism.
(Pro-tip for foreign consumers of Japanese journalism: NHK is the BBC, the 3 big national dailies are the NYT, Nikkei is the WSJ, and every other news outlet in the country will happily just make things up. 85% of 35 year olds below the poverty line!? For pity's sake.)
I have lived for a year in Kyoto around the poverty level they were talking about (2 millions and an half yens/year) and I was definitely not hurting for money....
Now it's true that with such a salary I don't think it would be easy to follow the traditional japanese lifestyle of supporting a house-wife plus family but anyway since salaries over there are partly determined by age + the employee's family situation...
According to the World Association of Newspapers [1], they are Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Mainichi Shimbun; also, those are the largest newspapers in the world. In terms of political leanings, Yomiuri is conservative, Asahi is liberal, and Mainichi is somewhere in-between.
(Pro-tip for foreign consumers of Japanese journalism: NHK is the BBC, the 3 big national dailies are the NYT, Nikkei is the WSJ, and every other news outlet in the country will happily just make things up. 85% of 35 year olds below the poverty line!? For pity's sake.)