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 04

Laughing at Macroeconomics: A Cartoon Introduction

By Paul Solman and Elizabeth Shell Unemployment rates, inflation, poverty, exchange rates -- all familiar topics for readers who frequent this page. Normally, these are no laughing matter. But cartoonist Grady Klein and stand-up comedian Yoram Bauman (who should…

Economy Dec 28

Economics Comedy in Beijing: Part Two

EmbedVideo(2296, 620, 386); This penultimate post from Our Man in Beijing, standup economist Yoram Bauman, chronicles a true test: doing jokes in front of a Chinese audience. The responses are instructive, as are Yoram's responses during the Q&A.

Making Sen$e Dec 28

Economics Comedy in Beijing: Part Two

// This penultimate post from Our Man in Beijing, standup economist Yoram Bauman, chronicles a true test: doing jokes in front of a Chinese audience. The responses are instructive, as are Yoram's responses during the Q&A. His answer about horses…

Economy Nov 24

European Bond Scare: Germany Edition

Trader at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany. Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images. The U.S. markets lie as still today as the birds on America's platters, but the same cannot be said for fluttering Europe, or anywhere else in the…

Economy Nov 16

Is America a Loan Shark or a Borrowing Walrus?

Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users here on his Making Sen$e page. Wednesday's query is answered first by Paul, and further down by Yoram Bauman, our frequent economist contributor from China: Name:…

Health Nov 15

One Mother’s Story of Teen Pregnancy in Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Marling del Socorro Valverdi balances a restless baby on her hip as she tries to attach yards of red and green crepe paper to a drab newsprint pinata shell. In the Valverdi family, pinata sales equal dinner…

Economy Nov 10

Why Are Medical Costs So High?

Photo by Lilli Day / Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Curt Carpenter Question: I would really like…

Economy Nov 09

For the Love of Chinese Bread

// Economic analysis of a local, family-run bread bakery is the topic of the latest dispatch from Yoram Bauman, our temporary economist-in-residence in China. Using his improving (but still a bit limited) language skills and a visit to the…

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