He began his career in journalism as a reporter on the business desk of The Washington Post in 1969 and left the paper to become a freelancer in 1973.^[1] His work has appeared in The Sunday Times, The New Republic and the Columbia Journalism Review. He joined the National Journal in 1976, where he wrote the "Economic Focus" column. He was a contributing editor there from 1981 to 1984, when he left to write for Newsweek.^[2] At age 75, Samuelson posted his last op-ed article in The Washington Post on September 14, 2020.

Samuelson was born in New York City and raised in nearby White Plains, New York.^[3] He received his bachelor's degree in 1967 from Harvard University, where he concentrated in government.^[4] He and his wife, Judith Herr, live in Bethesda, Maryland and have three children.^[2][5]

Samuelson has received:^[2]

• 1993 John Hancock Award for Best Business and Financial Columnist
• National Headliner Award for Feature Column on a Single Subject in both 1992 and 1993; another in 1987 for Best Special Interest Column
• Gerald Loeb Awards for Commentary in 1994,^[6] 1986^[7] and 1983;^{[citation needed]} Loeb finalist in 1988 for his columns on the October 1987 Wall Street crash
• An Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship^[8] in 1982 to research and write about the changes in the U.S. economy since World War II.
• 1981 National Magazine Award

• The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, (Random House: 1995) 368 pages, ISBN 0-8129-2592-0
• Untruth: Why the Conventional Wisdom Is (Almost Always) Wrong, (Random House: 2001) 304 pages ISBN 978-0-8129-9164-2 (trade paperback edition)
• The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence, (Random House: 2008) 336 pages ISBN 978-0-375-50548-5

• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • C-SPAN Q&A interview with Samuelson, January 2, 2011