Wilma Melville, founder of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, with training dogs Jem and Newton. Photo by Jonathan Alcorn for The Washington Post.

Much of the coverage of the U.S. Census Bureau's report that more older adults are working highlighted those who have put social impact at the top of their priority lists.

"We work because we still have something to give," an English-as-a-second-language instructor told the San Francisco Chronicle. A mental health worker said, "Helping people back to wholeness is the one way I have to work to change the system."

The Census Bureau report found that 23.2 percent of people between 65 and 74 are in the labor force (either working or looking for work), compared to 19.6 percent in 2000. Among the cities with the highest rates of labor force participation among this age group were Washington, D.C., Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Houston.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel found Pat Benway, 66, a social worker who counsels elderly clients. "People are living longer and want to be productive, and they're acting younger," she says. "I don't feel old, and a lot of my clients who are in their 80s are quite remarkable." She added, "I think we learn a lot as we get older."

The Washington Post focused on economic reasons -- soaring health care costs and shrinking pensions -- for continued work in its front-page story on the census report. That story featured Henry Behrens, 63, of Alexandria, who has worked for a dozen years as a security guard after retiring from his military career.

"Being handsome doesn't pay the bills," Behrens says.

But a Washington Post feature story elsewhere in the paper, First Loves and Second Careers: Giving Back to the Community, emphasized purpose and passion as major reasons to keep working.

That story featured Wilma Melville, a 2007 Purpose Prize winner and retired P.E. teacher who trains dogs to rescue victims of disasters. "Relying on her years of dog training and her experience as an educator and mother of four grown sons, Melville set out to change the status-quo and create a center that would train canine search teams from across the country," reports writer Judith Mbuya.

The story also profiles Wanjiru Kamau, a native Kenyan who, at 67, is founder and executive director of African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation, helping new African immigrants make the transition into American society.

"I saw a problem and knew I was growing old very quickly -- I didn't have time to wait," Kamau told Mbuya. "I just had to get out and do what needed to be done."

Phil Borges, 64, a Purpose Prize fellow, retired as an orthodontist to become a photographer, then put those skills to use in founding Bridges to Understanding, a nonprofit to help children better understand the world.

"My mission now is to connect young people -- middle school and high school students -- with their peers in the developing world to create empathy and understanding across cultures," Borges told the paper.