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Paul Solman

About Paul

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 Jul 05

Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts? Try 95 Percent

The United States has slid in rankings of industrialized nations putting youth to work. Jobless rates for young black dropouts are especially high. Photo courtesy of Pascal Broze/ONOKY via Getty Images. Paul Solman: Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum is…

Economy Jul 05

Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts? Try 95 Percent

By Paul Solman The United States has slid in rankings of industrialized nations putting youth to work. Jobless rates for young black dropouts are especially high. Photo courtesy of Pascal Broze/ONOKY via Getty Images. Paul Solman: Northeastern University economist…

Economy Jul 01

The Late Gary David Goldberg, Manager Extraordinaire

// Paul Solman catches up with his college chum, Gary Goldberg, the producer of the hit television series "Family Ties" in this 1988 segment on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Goldberg died last month. On June 22, just shy of his 69th…

Economy Jul 01

The Late Gary David Goldberg, Manager Extraordinaire

By Paul Solman // Paul Solman catches up with his college chum, Gary Goldberg, the producer of the hit television series "Family Ties" in this 1988 segment on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Goldberg died last month. On June 22, just shy…

Economy Jun 21

Why Those Who Feel They Have Less Give More

What is it that wealth does to people? On Thursday's Making Sen$e segment, Paul Solman traveled to the University of California, Berkeley, to examine the connection between wealth and happiness. His report on the psychology of wealth, which appears…

Economy Jun 21

Why Those Who Feel They Have Less Give More

What is it that wealth does to people? On Thursday's Making Sen$e segment, Paul Solman traveled to the University of California, Berkeley, to examine the connection between wealth and happiness. His report on the psychology of wealth, which appears…

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