Federal Reserve officials voted Wednesday to raise their interest rate target for the second time in 2017 and to begin shrinking the central bank’s balance sheet this year, a vote of confidence in the prospects for the U.S. economy in the months ahead despite weak first-quarter growth and slowing inflation.

The rate increase brings the Fed’s target for short-term interest rates to a range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent, back to its level during the financial crisis in 2008, before the Ben Bernanke-led Fed lowered rates all the way to zero.