Poverty is not inevitable.
In fact, we have already made historic progress in reducing it-both globally and in the United States. In Poverty Abolitionists, economist, pastor, and activist David Beckmann shows that with collective will, effective strategy, and renewed moral vision, we can virtually eliminate poverty in our generation.
Drawing on decades of leadership at the World Bank and as president of Bread for the World, Beckmann distills five essential insights and ten strategies to reinvigorate the fight against hunger and deprivation. He highlights data that proves poverty is solvable, confronts the big political setback that has reversed progress, and calls for a new poverty abolition movement-similar in scale and determination to the movement that ended enslavement.
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. Beckmann insists that the movement to abolish poverty is not only political but also spiritual. He invites people of faith, seekers, and skeptics alike to deepen their solidarity with those in need and with a threatened planet.
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 who seek to build a fairer, freer, and more just world.
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.
Beckmann will be in conversation with Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Taylor previously led the Faith Initiative at the World Bank Group and served as the vice president in charge of Advocacy at World Vision U.S. and the senior political director at Sojourners.Taylor is ordained in the American Baptist Church and the Progressive National Baptist Convention and serves in ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va. Follow him on Bluesky @revadamtaylor.