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Paul Solman

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Paul Solman

About Paul @paulsolman

Paul Solman has been a correspondent for the PBS News Hour since 1985, mainly covering business and economics.

While attending Brandeis University, Solman joined the Brandeis newspaper, The Justice, and eventually became its editor. He got his first journalism job in 1970 at the alternative weekly Boston After Dark.

Solman became founding editor of the rival alternative weekly The Real Paper in 1972 and went on to become a feature writer and investigative reporter.

Solman received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978.

After a few years of local PBS reporting, he inaugurated the PBS business documentary series, ENTERPRISE with fellow Nieman Fellow Zvi Dor-Ner.

In the 1980s, Solman produced documentaries, returned to local reporting, and joined the Harvard Business School faculty, teaching media, finance and business history in the school's Advanced Management Program. He also co-authored “Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield” in 1983, which appeared in Japanese, German and Taiwanese editions. He joined the MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1985.

In the '90s, with sociologist Morrie Schwartz, a teacher of his at Brandeis, Solman helped create -- and wrote the introduction to the book "Morrie: In His Own Words," which preceded "Tuesdays with Morrie.” In 2015, Solman co-authored “Get What's Yours: the Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security.”

Solman has lectured on college campuses since the '80s and has written for numerous publications, including the Journal of Economic Education. As a one-time cab driver, kindergarten teacher, crafts store co-owner and management consultant, he was also the author and presenter of "Discovering Economics with Paul Solman," a series of videos to accompany introductory economics textbooks.

In 2007, he joined the faculty at Yale, where he contributed to the university's Grand Strategy course for a decade. In 2011, he was the Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor at his alma mater, Brandeis, where he taught a seminar, "Economic Grand Strategies: From Chimps to Champs? Or Chumps?" He has taught regularly at West Point, the Naval War College and was an adjunct faculty member at Gateway Community College in New Haven, CT, where he created the evening program, “Yale@Gateway.” In 2016, he was a Visiting Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University.

Since 2019, Solman has chaired the board of the anti-polarization American Exchange Project, a nonpolitical nonprofit domestic "foreign exchange" program that introduces high school seniors from everywhere in America to each other, sends and embeds them, for free, in communities unlike their own.

Solman took up tennis at 50. His father was the American expressionist artist Joseph Solman. He is married with two children and seven grandchildren.

Full Bio

Paul’s Recent Stories

Economy Jan 17

How do we fix the unequal economy?

The solution to economic inequality depends on what you think the cause is.

Economy Jan 10

A ‘perverse’ and chilly jobs report: Unemployment down, but we’re leaving the workforce in droves

Photo courtesy of Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. My preferred word to describe today's unemployment numbers comes from Robin Harding in this morning's Financial Times: "perverse" (though you need a subscription to read the article). That is, a paltry 74,000…

Economy Jan 10

A ‘Perverse’ and Chilly Jobs Report: Unemployment Down, but We’re Leaving the Workforce in Droves

By Paul Solman My preferred word to describe today’s unemployment numbers comes from Robin Harding in this morning’s Financial Times: “perverse” (though you need a subscription to read the article). That is, a paltry 74,000 new jobs…

Making Sen$e Dec 27

So you think you can do better than the Fed?

Fed chair Ben Bernanke steps down at the end of January. The Fed may not be perfect, Paul Solman explains in response to a reader, but is there another way to run a modern market-driven economy? Photo courtesy of Alex…

Economy Dec 27

So You Think You Can Do Better Than the Fed?

Fed chair Ben Bernanke steps down at the end of January. The Fed may not be perfect, Paul Solman explains in response to a reader, but is there another way to run a modern market-driven economy? Photo courtesy of Alex…

Economy Dec 18

Inside the sanctum: How the Fed’s Open Market Committee decides what to do

// In March of 1994, Paul Solman simulated a meeting of the Fed's inner sanctum, the Open Market Committee, with former Fed members. The segment aired on March 23. The day before, the FOMC voted to raise short-term interest rates…

Economy Dec 06

At November’s pace, 5 percent unemployment by the end of Obama’s second term

November's jobs report painted a rosier view of the economy, and if job growth continued at the same pace -- or even slightly less -- the unemployment rate would fall to 5 percent by the end of President Barack Obama's…

Economy Dec 06

At November’s Pace, 5 Percent Unemployment by the End of Obama’s Second Term

By Paul Solman Our "Solman Scale" measures the "U-7," adding to the officially unemployed part-timers looking for full-time work and "discouraged" workers -- everyone who didn't look for a job in the past week but says they want one. 203,000…

Economy Nov 08

The secret to airport workers not losing your luggage

// In our fifth and final web exclusive on SeaTac, Wash.'s, ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage, we examine how paying airport workers a living wage could make air travel a lot smoother for everyone.

Economy Nov 08

The Secret to Airport Workers not Losing Your Luggage

// In our fifth and final web exclusive on SeaTac, Wash.'s, ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage, we examine how paying airport workers a living wage could make air travel a lot smoother for everyone. What does SeaTac, Wash.'s,…

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