>2) Older workers often need higher salaries because they have families to support (along with the many costs associated) which young workers do not. It's a naturally unbalanced situation.

That's completely illogical. What you need doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what type of work is available for you and retraining expands the availability of work. If retraining is unattractive because you see higher paying opportunities elsewhere then you don't even have the problem that retraining is supposed to solve.