Live: Federal Reserve announces first interest-rate hike in nearly a decade
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark short-term interest rate for the first time in 9 ½ years, providing a long-awaited vote of confidence for the recovery from the Great Recession by beginning to remove the last of the central bank’s extraordinary steps to boost economic growth.
Seven years to the day after lowering the rate to near zero, members of the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee edged it up 0.25 percentage point.
