Federal Reserve officials raised interest rates to their highest level in 22 years and left the door open to further action as they continued their 16-month campaign to wrestle inflation lower by cooling the American economy.Officials pushed rates to a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, their highest level since 2001, in a unanimous decision.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, suggested in a news conference following the decision that while the “pieces of the puzzle” that could allow inflation to sustainably slow down are beginning to come together, rates had not yet been high enough for long enough — and that the Fed was “prepared to further tighten” if necessary.The Fed chief carefully kept the central bank’s options open at an uncertain economic juncture, one that offers reasons for both optimism and caution.Fed policymakers began to raise rates from near-zero in March 2022 and pushed the …
