Sorry to mess on your plans there, but as a great many people have found out, no, there are not many companies that hire old er...citizens. Wal-mart did away with the greeter positions a long time ago. Someone with degrees, and with some age on them will find that even if the place has a sign up begging for help, are stating they have to close due to "lack of staff" they do not have this person in mind. They know two or three things. First of all, that person is not likely to stay there long enough to make training them worthwhile. Two, they are going to be supervised by a twenty something person who doesn't want to mess with someone older than their parents that they have to give directions to. Three, the work itself may be okay for someone in their 30's or 40's but when you get up close to where I am it gets very hard on the legs and back to even stand in one place for any length of time. So "if you get in a tight spot, go out and get a job, any job" is sometimes much easier said than done.
In my years of helping people who were becoming unemployed I saw so many people who had never visualized themselves in a situation where they were not able to go out and work, go out and get hired, go out and get a another job, just any job.....until it actually happened to them. And that so called "emergency fund" that all the financial gurus tell you that you must have on hand, well, that idea dies real quick when the emergency is that you can't buy food or gas. A car problem would be a sincere need, but as for hospital bills, when you're judgment proof, they aren't going to be able to get that big hospital bill paid, and you don't need to hang onto just enough cash to keep from qualifying for anything, though not enough to meet your needs.
I also question whether or not a person can get SNAP food assistance without consideration of their total assets, such as bank accounts, not just their cash in hand. Wow, things are so different in some other states than in mine! In my hazy memory, a person could not qulify for Social Security retirement and Supplemental Security Income at the same time, that being a federal thing. But in all the programs, I believe that a nest egg of $30K is something they're going to tell you to spend down before you come asking for government assistance based on your income.