The Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the first time in nearly a decade. The central banking committee unanimously voted to move the target range for the federal funds rate to a 0.25-0.5 percent range, up from a 0-0.25 range. “The committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise, over the medium term, to its 2 percent objective,” the Federal Open Market Committee explained in a statement.
