Federal Reserve officials raised interest rates for the second time this year and upgraded their forecast to four total increases in 2018.
Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters following the decision, which lifted the Fed’s benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to a range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent, that the main takeaway was that “the economy is doing very well.”
“Economic activity has been rising at a solid rate,” the FOMC said in its statement. “Recent data suggest that growth of household spending has picked up, while business fixed investment has continued to grow strongly.”
Wednesday’s decision to raise rates was a unanimous 8-0.