It's only a part time job but at my age I'm scared I won't be able to find one.

If we want to really juice this economy and give our young people a chance to prosper ...

We need to do the opposite of what a lot of politicians in both parties are proposing.

We can pay for it by cutting the military; taxing stock market transactions; lifting the cap on Social Security contributions; maybe even increasing the SS withholding ever so slightly --- lower the SS retirement age to 62 and making people eligible for Medicare at age 60 or even 57.

Just think of what that would mean for the employment prospects for younger folks and think of (hopefully) a lot more people 59 1/2 who could use their 401K savings and Social Security to have some discretionary spending (maybe not much, but would be money spent while not in competition for regular wage jobs).

My husband's IT jobs were offshored 3 times when he was over 40. He got a job in Florida for small software firm and that is the only reason we moved from NY. The ironic part? Now they are saying they cannot find people in the US who can code in Mainframe. All those jobs are now overseas, yet do we want our Government IT being run from a foreign country? My husband has had people say to him at 65 years old, "TEACH what you know for a living to the young people in this country." Oh, isn't what he knows a dead, outdated field?

Hiring someone over 50 would mean that they would be expected to pay a living wage plus benefits.

is valuable in a changing world should consider that path. The challenge is writing a book that efficiently transfers knowledge, many sage technical people can't do that.

I get plenty of interviews, but one can't hide their age after a point. In January, I'll mark 3 years of unemployment (yes, UBs are exhausted at this point).

BTW - I'm in very good shape for my age - not overweight (I walk for over an hour every day), look healthy, though I am balding (there ya have it! Disqualified from employment!). When I tell people my age, they're usually surprised and say they figured i was in my mid-to-late 40s. My resume scans very well and my references are impeccable.

The thing is, I do a lot of volunteer work, and I've ascended to "executive" positions in all of those endeavors. I'm one of the go-to people, one of the strategists in the volunteer organizations I'm involved with. Everyone wonders why employers don't snap up a guy like me. Well, it's ageism.

BTW - don't know if others are finding this, but while I have no problem applying for low-pay jobs to real-salary jobs, I NEVER even get called for a phone interview by the low-paying jobs. They have no interest - I'm overqualified. At my age, dumbing down your resume isn't an option. I get interviews for decent-paying jobs quite regularly, but just can't close the deal. So much for setting your sights lower and going for a low-wage job just to get work. Hasn't worked for me at all.

I've given up looking. Will be 62 in a few months and will apply for early Social Security because I don't see any hope of working again. I was a newspaper reporter and writer for energy-related publications and websites. Luckily my husband has a job.

It was demoralizing to answer ad after ad, send out resume after resume and never get any hits. I had two interviews in 5 years but suspect that as soon as they saw me and realized how old I am, they mentally crossed me off the list. In the past, if I got as far as the interview stage, I was almost always hired.

But it's harder and harder to find a job at any age. One of my daughters looked for months before finding a part time, minimum wage job at a bookstore. The other one is a part time waitress. She and her coworkers just got their hours cut because the restaurant chain hired more part timers so nobody would work enough hours to qualify for health insurance.

Not nearly the problem it would be in just 5 years and I have the advantages of looking young and having gotten my degrees late which makes me "look" even younger but it also took me 3 years to get a previous job before the economy tanked (over educated and too specialized) so I'm a bit scared. Starting to look now rather than wait (job ends in May). At least I qualify for some executive level and upper management level positions where years of experience are a bonus.