WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials, wrapping up a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, are still thinking about raising the Fed’s benchmark interest rate in 2015, in part because they see strategic advantages in moving earlier than necessary.

The Fed is widely expected to announce that it will continue for now to hold its benchmark rate near zero. The case for liftoff has weakened since the summer. The rest of the world is struggling and there are worrying signs of slower domestic growth.

But Fed officials are unlikely to rule out an increase at their final meeting of the year, in December, in part because they are still waiting to see whether economic growth weakened in recent months, and in part because they want to start raising rates early so they can raise them slowly.

“An advantage to beginning a little bit earlier is that we might have a more gradual path of rate increases,” the Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, told Congress this summer. She explained that moving slowly was prudent, while moving more quickly might be disruptive.