For two, in context of the original article, what matters is "are they working" which the author clarified to "having a job". A person during the weekend has a job, a retired person does not. Again, no confusion.
For three, in the context of minimum guaranteed wage: a person during the weekend is not paid by the government, but by his employer. A retired person is paid his pension by the government. So one can go in the bucket of people that is actually receiving a minimum income already, the other one does not. So within the context of my first post, they also don't look the same.
If there is a parallel you are seeing and I'm missing, feel free to point it out. What I agree with is that from the person's perspective, they are both not working (in a sense not meant by the OP) and both receiving an income (though from a different source). But after that all similarity stops as far as I can tell.