The Federal Reserve increased its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percent, marking its first rate hike since last December and only the second in a decade, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced Wednesday.
After keeping rates unchanged in the past seven meetings, all 10 of the FOMC members voted in favor of raising the range for the federal funds rate to 0.50 - 0.75 percent, from 0.25 - 0.50 percent. The FOMC also noted that it now expects to increase rates three times in 2017, from the previous projection of two rate hikes.
Some of the FOMC members factored President-elect Donald Trump's economic proposals into their projections for 2017, the Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a press conference after the announcement. Regarding the update in the number of possible rate hikes next year, Yellen said those new projections "may have been a factor that was one of several that occasioned these shifts”.
During his campaign, Trump said the Fed's low-rate policy created a "false economy" and Yellen "should be ashamed" of keeping rates low.