Clarity when it matters most

With federal funding gone, your monthly support powers PBS News
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

Arts Nov 08

The Fed’s $600 Billion Move: Monetary Debauchery?

Forgive me for not answering a question today, but for posting a note about the Fed. Its decision last week: to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter…

Economy Nov 05

Solman Answers Reader Questions on Latest Job Numbers

A flurry of questions today about the October job report from NewsHour's Facebook and Twitter. In response, a flurry of answers. ........................................................................................................................................... Janet Vetter: The economy added 150,000 jobs but the unemployment rate remained the same? What…

Arts Nov 04

Midterm Election Pitted Keynesians vs. Hayekians, Again

This entry is cross-posted on the Making Sen$e page, where correspondent Paul Solman answers your economic and business questions "It's the economy, stupid." (Bill Clinton, 1992) "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" (Ronald Reagan,…

Arts Nov 01

A Side Note on Herbal Supplements

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: Name: Dick Levinson Question: While I admire your intelligence and integrity, your…

Arts Oct 28

Foreclosure Issues Elicit Strong Debate

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: John Magill Question: Regarding your Oct.14 article on foreclosures and specifically the…

Economy Oct 14

Why We’re Looking at Foreclosures

On Thursday's NewsHour, we have the first in a series of stories on foreclosures. A glance at the "Most Popular" list at the Wall St. Journal's online real estate page gives some sense of the shapes these stories are taking:…

Support Provided By: Learn more