How Nice?

I stopped into a convenience store today, to buy snacks and a soda I absolutely had no business consuming, and I noticed an older lady behind the counter.
  Now, by 'older' I don't mean in her forties, or fifties, or even just older than me, I mean past retirement age.  She had liver spots on her hands and that kind of stooped, osteo-porotic posture you see older white women getting.  And she didn't move very fast.
  My first thought was 'Oh, how nice, she's decided she needs to get out of the house and be around people for a few hours a day.  Good for her.  When I get that old I'd like to do the same.'
  Then, as I waited in line, I had a second thought.
  What if she needs to work?
  What if, despite her best efforts, despite a lifetime of planning and saving and doing without, she's come to the twilight of her years without enough to live on?  What if she's only working the register because she has to make rent?  Or prescription money?  What if the system she counted on to take care of her, the system she supported from her earliest working life, no longer supports her?
   I didn't have the courage to ask, I couldn't even imagine how to broach the subject.  'Excuse me, ma'am, but has the social safety net betrayed your expectations?  Are you working here because you have no other option?'
   I've saved quite a bit over the years.  I'm gonna need to save more.