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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 May 26

Mortgage Form Makeover: What Do You Think?

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently announced plans to simplify the mortgage paperwork that has long confused potential homebuyers. "The current forms can be complicated and difficult for consumers to use. They are also redundant and…

Arts May 24

Making Sense: The Rising Price of Oil

Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: William Bair Question: What, if anything, is be done on the…

Arts May 23

Making Sense: Is it Dumb to Play the Lottery?

Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: We received a fascinating email in response to last week's installment of…

Economy May 18

Making Sense: The Two Faces of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Paul interviewed Strauss-Kahn in September of 2009. Watch the interview here. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was as urbane and well-mannered an interviewee as ever you'll meet. Sensible and clear, as in a NewsHour interview during the heat of…

Arts May 13

Extremist Economics and Printing Dollars

John Williams is an economic extremist. He thinks a collapse of the U.S. dollar and hyperinflation are just around the corner and that gold is therefore the best bet around. He thinks the government manipulates the economic data to…

Arts May 12

Making Sense: Are Taxes Lower Now Than the 1950s?

Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Peter Anderheggen Question: I recently heard that in 2011, the nation,…

Arts May 11

‘Inside Job’: An Oscar Winner Answers Your Questions

Editor's Note: Today we hand over question-and-answer duties to Charles Ferguson, former MIT academic and dot.com entrepreneur who is now a documentary filmmaker, and who created the Academy Award-winning analysis of the Crash of '08, "Inside Job." Last week,…

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