According to kff.org, "In 2016, half of all people on Medicare had income less than $26,200 per person." Additionally, kff.org, states, "More than 7 million people ages 65 and older had incomes below poverty in 2017, based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure." The sheer numbers of senior citizens, that are struggling should be cause for concern, and is a meaningful reason why so many senior citizens have returned to the work force, as they are basically unable to make ends meet.
The United States government has an obligation to lend more of a resolute helping hand to all those senior citizens that have incomes below the supplemental poverty level. One good way to address this dilemma is to provide those senior citizens with supplemental wages for all those senior citizens that are still working in the labor force, or are considering doing so.
In an era in which low wage jobs are plentiful, senior citizens should be entitled to something more than a minimum wage, especially in consideration that they are in the twilight period of their lives. One way to augment all those senior citizens that are making less than $15/hour is for the government to make up the difference between their hourly wages so that the net effect is that each senior citizen through the governmental augmentation of their labor wage ends up making at least $15/hour. That is to say, a senior citizen being paid $8/hour at their job should be entitled to an augmented stipend from the government for an additional $7/hour, thereby providing these senior citizens with a living wage of $15/hour. This payment, should not be structured such as the Earned Income Credit (EIC), of which eligible taxpayers receive a lump sum from the government, come tax time, but rather it needs to be something that is structured in a manner, in which the hourly wage shortfall is made up to that senior citizen, monthly; so that they are thereby better able to meet their expenses on a current basis, and further this thus helps alleviate them from suffering the ill effects of being constantly impoverished.
If the whole point of pensions, social security, Medicare, and 401K plans are essentially to make it so that those that are senior citizens have the basics of a good and not impoverished life; then it is the responsibility of this government to take care of those senior citizens in a manner in which those that are still laboring are doing so, not towards an endless futility of constantly struggling to keep their heads above water, but rather in a manner in which the government becomes a meaningful aid to those senior citizens so that they need not have to unduly struggle.
While there are undoubtedly many reasons why senior citizens still work, certainly one of the most germane reasons is that they need money; and when the wages of their work are not enough to provide them with an actual living wage, then the government, as it does with so many other welfare programs, needs to step up and to take care of those that have grown old in their service to their country, and at a minimum, do its part to help those that have helped to make America so great.