committee a victory that reflects the feds tradition of maintaining the appearance of consensus on major decisions three of those officials had argued in recent months that the economy might not be ready for higher rates a view shared by some economists and by democrats who argue that the fed is prematurely curtailing job and wage growthwhen millions of americans are working longer hours for lower wages the federal reserves decision to raise interest rates is bad news for working families senator bernie sanders of vermont a democratic presidential candidate said in a statement on wednesday the fed should act with the same sense of urgency to rebuild the disappearing middle class as it did to bail out wall street banks seven years agosome republicans meanwhile bid good riddance to the era of nearzero interest rates unsustainably low interest rates clearly didnt solve the problem or else americans today wouldnt be stuck in the slowest worstperforming economic recovery of our lifetimes representative jeb hensarling republican of texas republican and chairman of the house financial services committee said in a statementthe fed cited strong job growth and the broader backdrop of a moderate but steady economic expansion as evidence that the economy no longer needed quite as much of its help 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 said in a statement on wednesday after a twoday meetingthe fed also released economic projections by its senior officials underscoring that they expect slow growth the officials predicted on average that the economy would expand by 24 percent next year while the unemployment rate would drop to 47 percent even as they forecast joblessness would remain low they predicted inflation would rise only gradually to the 2 percent annual pace the fed regards as most healthyimagecreditstephanie keithreutersmost officials predicted the fed would once again miss its 2 percent inflation target next yearat the news conference ms yellen faced repeated questions about the persistent sluggishness of inflation she posed the question to herself in her opening statement with inflation currently still low why is the committee raising the federal funds rate target because she said inflation was being suppressed temporarily by factors like lower oil prices but would rise as job growth continued she added that the fed needed to act because monetary policy works graduallyabrupt tightening could increase the risk of pushing the economy into recession ms yellen saidthe feds initial rate increase effective on thursday is likely to have a modest impact on the broader economy jpmorgan chase the nations largest bank announced soon after the feds decision that it would raise its prime rate to 35 percent increasing the interest rate on many loans but the bank said it would not increase the rate it pays on deposits wells fargo and bank of america similarly took advantage of the feds