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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 Dec 21

James Livingston: Corporations Don’t Need Our Savings

James Livingston loves consumption, is skeptical of private investment. Paul Solman pushes him further on positions Livingston raised in a story on the NewsHour Thursday. James Livingston makes three economic arguments in favor of consumption over private investment/greater production.

Economy Dec 21

Will America Go Broke, Yes or No?

Photo by Marc Grimberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Ashok Rao -- Chennai, India: I recently came across…

Economy Dec 20

Holiday Shopping: Keynesian and Self-Actualizing Both?

Paul Solman: On Thursday's NewsHour, a cerebral celebration of holiday shopping, courtesy of Rutgers University economic and intellectual historian James Livingston, author of the fascinating pro-consumption book "Against Thrift." Pitted against Livingston as counter-point is an anti-spending video from old…

Economy Dec 18

Federal ‘Tax Breaks’ or ‘It’s My Money’?

Image by Robin Jareaux/Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query, a comment sent by a viewer from Kansas: Barbara Penn: Hello…

Economy Dec 14

CDs vs. Bond Funds: Which Is Better?

Photo by Peter Dazeley via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Friday's query: Paul Hyland: Please discuss the merits of one- or…

Economy Dec 13

Tallying the Unemployed: Where in the World is U-7?

Job seekers wait in line to meet with recruiters during a job fair in South San Francisco, California. Photo by Justin Sullivan via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on…

Economy Dec 12

What’s Wrong with a Municipal Bond Fund?

Photo by Peter Dazeley via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Peter Stratton: I'm interested in current income only. Why…

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