Quite the opposite.

I think about quitting work all the time.

I only think about work once a day.

I dream of driving off into the sunset with my wife on a daily basis. Just pack a bag each and hit the road.

I did the math once, we could go about 18 months like that before we couldn’t afford gas, food, and maintenance anymore.

Of course we’d be financially ruined and our careers would basically have to restart, but a man can dream.

They're just thoughts, even broke people can afford those.

I had a friend who spent a long while out of work in their 20's because they had a mental breakdown and quit a well paying job. They later told me that it was less a choice to quit, and more the knowledge that if they continued there, they'd end up killing themselves. They knew that being unemployed would likely be just as torturous for their mental health, but it would at least be different.

This is all to say that I reckon that for many, choosing to be unemployed is probably an irrational choice, but when you're not doing well mental health wise, you're not necessarily going to be able to make rational choices.

I think you're right that everything being fucked at the moment is probably a key driving force here, and it's why I worry that even throwing a heckton of money at mental health services wouldn't be enough. It's also why Reform are doing so well in the polls — people are desperate for something other than the same old stuff that we have seen from both the Tories and Labour, and Reform are the only ones offering something different. It's a shame that the "something different" that Reform is offering is nothing but a scapegoat painted to look like a real alternative

If you live with your parents its pretty much just a continuation of life when you went to school. And if that was a good time for you then this probably will be too

Are they still living at their parents, trapped by the UK housing and job markets?

Different pressure when you aren't going to lose the roof over your head or you next meal if you quit work.

Its probably the only real upside of not being able to afford your own place.

"think about making some of the standard drugs in this country to improve supply."

A friend was telling me earlier about the various logistical tricks that Lidl and Aldi use to reduce prices. For example, because they primarily stock own-brand products, this reduces the number of different variants/brands per product they have to source, which means they buy larger amounts from fewer suppliers. This means they can negotiate with the supplier to get them to package the product so that packaging has super prominent barcodes for easy scanning, and the boxes can go straight from a pallet onto the shelf, reducing labour. In short, by doing stuff in bulk, they have more negotiating power.

i think your point about stabilising drug supply is an example of the kind of thing the NHS could do to leverage its enormous purchasing power. I know that one of my medications is quite expensive for the NHS, but also quite widely prescribed, for example.

Tbh the tories were almost onto something with workfare but they were needlessly cruel with it. All they had to do was give a living wage out of it rather than barely over £1/hour to work at Argos and it would have been kinda ok.

Unemployment benefits are so low you would only have to do a single shift a week if that is what you wanted to pay them. It would essentially be a guarantee of a minimum amount of work and income regardless of circumstance, and you could cut most job centre staff to pay for it. I am sure local councils could find useful things for an already paid for labour force and it would be more useful to the community than subsidising Argos.

Or they could deal with the reasons why workers' mental health is so bad.

Sorry, joking. I know the driving motivation is maximising profit, while minimising tax burden of the richest.