This Christmas, get ready for a rate hike.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said in prepared remarks Thursday that the Fed could raise interest rates “relatively soon.” The Fed last raised its key interest rate in December 2015 for the first time in a decade.
“The case for an increase in the target range had continued to strengthen,” Yellen said.
Yellen’s testimony on the state of the U.S. economy before Congress begins at 10 a.m. It will be Yellen’s first public comments since the election of Donald Trump, a big critic of Yellen.
The Fed’s next meeting is scheduled for December 13-14. The central bank is widely expected to hike rates — a signal that the U.S. economy is getting healthier and can withstand higher borrowing costs.
In her remarks, Yellen noted that the job market maintained some momentum this year, wage growth was starting to pick and inflation was moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.
Overall economic growth also picked up to nearly 3% in the third quarter after averaging a mere 1% in the first half of the year.
