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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 Jan 28

Ask Larry: Has My Social Security Office Given Me Bad Advice?

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Today, Social Security expert Larry Kotlikoff answers readers' questions covering issues from retirement, medicare and more. Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets", his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his…

Economy Jan 25

Is the National Debt Harmful to Our Children?

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Friday's comes from a reader at Next Avenue. The NewsHour has partnered with Next…

Economy Jan 25

Is the National Debt Harmful to Our Children?

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Friday's comes from a reader at Next Avenue. The NewsHour has partnered with Next…

Economy Jan 25

Rising Inequality: Don’t Blame the Robots

Robots work on 2008 Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUV frames on the assembly line at Ford Motor Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, Mich. Photo by Rebecca Cook/REUTERS. Paul Solman: Dean Baker thinks economic inequality is our fault. Baker, who…

Economy Jan 23

D.C.’s Funniest Celebrity: More Economics Comedy Routines

Yesterday we featured the econo-comedy of stand-up economist Yoram Bauman at this year's annual convention of dismal scientists. Today we present a few more snippets from the convention's comedy session. Emceeing was University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, a…

Economy Jan 22

Hyperinflation in Hell: An Economics Comedy Routine

Video courtesy of Yoram Bauman. Known as "the dismal science" for a reason that is itself dismal, economics has a tradition of humor long reliant on a few stock, self-deprecating jokes. A physicist, chemist and economist are stranded…

Economy Jan 22

Ask Larry: Is Suspend-and-Collect a Flawed Plan?

Social Security expert Larry Kotlikoff answers readers' questions covering issues from retirement, medicare and more. Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets", his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his Social Security …

Economy Jan 22

Ask Larry: Is Suspend-and-Collect a Flawed Plan?

Social Security expert Larry Kotlikoff answers readers' questions covering issues from retirement, medicare and more. Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets," his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his Social Security gotchas have prompted so many of…

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