David Beckmann is an economist, pastor, and activist. He was awarded the World Food Prize for leadership that led to substantial reductions in hunger. Drawing on stories from his own life and the struggles of poor communities around the world, Beckmann distills five essential insights and ten strategies to get progress against poverty going again.

These include legislative advocacy, volunteering and financial contributions to election campaigns, action in defense of democracy, and needed reforms in American spirituality and religion. He invites people of faith, seekers, and skeptics alike to deepen their solidarity with those in need and with a threatened planet.

He highlights data that prove poverty is solvable, confronts the problems that our country and the world now face, and calls for a new poverty abolition movement—similar in scale and determination to the movement that ended slavery.

At the heart of this book is hope: hope grounded in evidence, history, and the countless efforts of communities and advocates who continue to push for justice. With a foreword by travel writer Rick Steves, Poverty Abolitionists offers both a practical roadmap and a stirring moral challenge. It is a clarion call to action for activists, policy makers, and ordinary citizens who care about the future of humanity and seek to build a fairer, freer, and more just world.

David Beckmann recently took time ahead of the book's release next week to answer seven questions from Porchlight.

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Porchlight Book Company: Writing a book is no small undertaking. What compelled you to write this one?

David Beckmann: In early 2025, the Trump administration abruptly dismantled USAID. The end of health and emergency food assistance resulted in more than half a million deaths that year. The President’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” cut $1.2 trillion from domestic food and health assistance. If the 370,000 churches in the country were to try to make up for that, each would have to give an extra $250,000 a year to people in need for the next 10 years. I don’t know of any church that could do that.

Mass deportation has also made many hard-working families poorer. The President’s policies on environment, technology, trade, and now war are also increasing poverty.

The second Trump administration has reversed decades of progress against poverty in our country and around the world. Yet we know how to reduce poverty. I’ve been working to reduce poverty for 50 years—in rural Bangladesh, at the World Bank, and then leading faith-based advocacy with Congress. I’ve written this book to strengthen what I call the “poverty abolition movement,” and to share effective ways to get progress against poverty going again.

PBC: What is one unanswered question you encountered as you wrote the book that you are most interested in answering now?

DB: The US-Israeli attack on Iran is a relatively recent development. It’s causing severe economic hardship in the Middle East and Asia, and has made it yet more difficult for  many Americans to pay their bills. It has also further undermined US credibility as a leader for good in the world. I don’t know how we are going to bring this violent chapter in our nation’s history to a close.

PBC: If there is only one thing a reader takes away from reading this book, what would you hope it to be?

DB: I hope this book influences many people to become active in this year’s elections. It’s crucial that the minority party wins a majority in one or both houses of Congress. That would restrain the President somewhat. I’m urging people to vote, of course, but also to give volunteer time and money to good candidates. Only 2% of Americans give more than $100 a year to candidates or parties, so we leave it to a relatively small group of mostly wealthy people to fund the process by which we choose our nation’s leaders. 

Poverty Abolitionists also outlines data-informed changes in American religion and spirituality that would make our nation more generous. For example, about half of the Americans who more or less believe in God think that God is more judgmental than forgiving. But those of us who experience God as more forgiving than judgmental tend to be more progressive on economic justice issues.

PBC: One of the great things about books is that they tend to lead readers to other books. What book[s] related to this topic would you recommend people read after (or perhaps even before) reading your book?

DB: Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond. He stresses the fact that some people have an interest in keeping other people poor and highlights opportunities to work with people in poverty who are fighting back.

PBC: What is your favorite book?

DB: Jesus: The Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary by Marcus Borg. 

PBC: What are you reading now?

DB: The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy by Ray D. Madoff. 

PBC: Do you have any future projects in the works that we can look forward to? 

DB: I will focus over the coming year on media, social media, and events that share insights from Poverty Abolitionists. I’ll be encouraging people to read it and take action on its recommendations.

About the Author

David Beckmann is an economist, pastor, and activist who has spent his life working to end poverty. A former World Bank economist, he served for 29 years as president of Bread for the World, where his leadership helped secure U.S. and global policy changes that reduced hunger worldwide. Awarded the World Food Prize, Beckmann now leads the Circle of Protection, a coalition of Christian leaders advocating for programs that serve low-income people, and teaches on religion, politics, and poverty reduction.