The Federal Reserve looks ready to raise interest rates.



When the Fed increased its benchmark interest rate last December after keeping it near zero for seven years, Fed officials were in general agreement that they might raise rates as many as four times in 2016. Instead, they are likely to increase them for the first time this year at their final meeting of 2016, on Dec. 13 and 14.

Economic growth remains slow and steady, but Fed officials are increasingly convinced that’s good enough. Their concerns about moving too soon are giving way to worries about waiting too long.



Those worries have intensified since Donald J. Trump’s election. Investors are betting Mr. Trump will collaborate with Congress on tax cuts and other measures that could increase economic growth. He has also proposed new barriers to imports, which could drive up inflation.



Fed officials have emphasized that they still expect to raise rates slowly. Almost every year since the financial crisis has brought fresh predictions of faster growth, followed by disappointment. Fed officials have increasingly concluded that the world itself has changed. Slow productivity growth is weighing on global economic growth. Officials no longer expect to return interest rates to precrisis levels.



But they are ready to move rates a little higher. The Fed is currently holding its benchmark rate in a range between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent. Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, told Congress in November that a rate increase “could well become appropriate relatively soon.”

