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WSJ What’s News

Why the Social Security Shortfall Is Coming Sooner

09 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What recent event involving President Trump and Iran is discussed?

2.343 - 22.663 Alex Ossola

President Trump says the U.S. must respond after Iran downed a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Plus, the fund that helps pay for Social Security benefits is now expected to run out even earlier. And Anthropic releases its latest AI model, giving the public access to a tool that has spooked companies and the White House.

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22.694 - 30.583 Bob McMillan

Anthropic announced this new technology, and then they said, it's too dangerous to be released publicly. Naturally, that's going to get everybody's attention.

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30.963 - 38.512 Alex Ossola

The company says this model protects against those dangerous capabilities. It's Tuesday, June 9th. I'm Alex Oceleff for The Wall Street Journal.

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Chapter 2: Why is the Social Security trust fund projected to run out earlier?

38.932 - 60.656 Alex Ossola

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. President Trump has accused Iran of shooting down a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz and says the U.S. must respond. The development threatens to shatter a fragile ceasefire between Iran and the U.S.

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61.176 - 76.9 Alex Ossola

The downing of the helicopter late yesterday set off a race to find the two American crew members before Iranian forces could close in on them. The military says that in a first-of-its-kind operation at sea, a drone boat rescued the crew, who had spent two hours in the water off the coast of Oman.

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76.88 - 96.352 Alex Ossola

Iran didn't deny that it shot down the helicopter, but the country's foreign minister suggested that taking it down had been an accident. And NASA has chosen four astronauts for its next Artemis mission as it prepares for a moon landing in 2028. There is Mission Commander Randy Bresnik, a retired Marine Corps colonel who became a NASA astronaut in 2004.

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97.213 - 113.444 Alex Ossola

Also coming on the mission are Andre Douglas, who served in the Coast Guard as a naval architect, Frank Rubio, who once spent more than a year aboard the International Space Station, and Luca Parmitano, who's representing the European Space Agency. Artemis 3 won't take them to the moon or around it as the previous flight did.

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113.905 - 133.698 Alex Ossola

Instead, it will test hardware and vehicles that NASA intends to use for the eventual moon landing. Their flight is expected to launch next year. It will spend about two weeks in low-Earth orbit. If you're American, you may already know that the fund that pays out Social Security is expected to be depleted within the next decade.

134.159 - 150.542 Alex Ossola

Social Security's trustees said today that the deadline is actually coming a few months earlier than they had previously projected. Now it'll be in late 2032. Ann Tergesen, who covers retirement and personal finance for the journal, says there are a few reasons why the shortfall is coming earlier.

150.522 - 178.446 Anne Tergesen

The tax cuts that Congress passed last year means that a lot of Social Security beneficiaries are not paying as much tax on their Social Security benefits. And so that tax revenue is declining. And both fertility rates are declining and also immigration. Those declines mean that there are projecting fewer numbers of workers who are going to be paying into the system in the future.

178.466 - 182.475 Anne Tergesen

And that means less revenue for the Social Security trust funds.

182.976 - 189.692 Alex Ossola

But Ann says there's no need to panic quite yet that the fund only pays for a portion of the overall Social Security benefits.

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