WASHINGTON — Record-low mortgages are long gone. Credit card rates will likely rise. So will the cost of an auto loan. Savers may finally see a noticeable return.
The unusually large three-quarter point hike in its benchmark short-term rate that the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday won’t, by itself, have a huge effect on most Americans’ finances. But combined with earlier rate hikes and additional large increases to come, economists and investors foresee the fastest pace of rate increases since 1989.
The result is increasingly higher borrowing costs as the Fed fights the most painfully high inflation in four decades and ends a decades-long era of historically low rates.