I was retired and doing pretty well until the 2008 economic debacle wiped out nearly all of my savings/investments. Now I am over 65, with 3 degrees, and scrambling for anything to make enough money to pay my property taxes and hang on to my modest home. For two summers I worked the sweltering streets of this country as a census worker. Couldn't find anything for the last 14 months but then got a "casual employee" status job with the Post Office. This involves working overnight shifts on a factory floor of a distribution center, with ear-splitting noise from monstrously large sorting machines, and my shoving around pallets (on casters) with 600 lbs. of packages on them. I end my shift barely able to walk.

I was hired in November for a nominal 89 day period. That means it would not be classified as seasonal employment. However, my job ends the week after Christmas, (if my body will hold out that long) so practically it IS seasonal employment, despite being counted in the stats as "a real job!"

The pay? A munificent $11 an hour. It takes 4 gallons of gas plus turnpike tolls to commute to the job each night.

There are people as old as 80 working this job - believe me, no one would do this kind of mind-numbing, back breaking work if they were not desperate for income.

So don't let the head-in-the-clouds defenders of the Great Leader, lightly dismiss "people who are retired" as if they're just working for a lark, or a little extra pocket change.

My god, it is pathetic to see the elderly working at physical labor jobs. Every damn one of our politicians and corporate board members should be forced to work night shifts, 7 days a week, and THEN let them spew their crap about raising the eligibility age for Social Security or Medicare! Easy for someone sitting at a computer and getting paid to whore for politicians, to post garbage that since life expectancy has increased, we should raise retirement ages. The facts are that people are living longer but in poorer health, and particularly people whose work involves physical labor are NOT able to keep going into their 70's.