My father turns 70 in three days, and he has struggled to find long-term work for the last ten years. He'll work for a year, search for work for 15 months, work for another 18 months, etc. He would like to be working now, but COVID-19 probably marks the end of his working days forever.
He's been counted as retired a few times during the last decade, though he never was until this year.
At least twice in the last decade, he's been unemployed so long his benefits ran out. Perhaps the label in that case isn't "retired," but he wasn't counted as unemployed, either.
The BLS tracks six measures of unemployment rate via survey called U1-U6. U3 is the official unemployment rate, but they report the others as well[1].
For U3, you are considered unemployed if you do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. U4 is that plus anyone who wants a job, but gave up looking because they don't think they will find one. U6 adds in people who only have part-time work but want full-time work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#United_States_Bur...
They basically survey 60,000 people and ask a specific set of questions to figure out which "bucket" people are in.
Third world conditions are much worse than that. I've seen families sleeping on sidewalks. No car, no health care.
Sure everybody wants more. There are a lot of retired people who would like a job, but that is as much about the social connection as money. There are also those who lost their money (scams target retired people) and need a job, but that isn't most of them.