Inflation fears led to a bigger increase in Fed interest rates in June

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials agreed at their meeting last month that they will need to raise interest rates faster and to levels high enough to slow economic growth because of the worsening inflation picture.

Officials voted to raise their benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage points in June, a bigger increase than their half-point move in May and the biggest increase since 1994. Officials expected they would raise interest rates by either half a percentage point or 0.75 basis points at their meeting later this month, according to minutes of the Fed’s June 14-15 meeting released on Wednesday.