Washington — Federal Reserve policymakers on Wednesday enacted their third small hike in a key interest rate in six months, a move that will push it above 1 percent for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis.

The 0.25 percentage point increase in the federal funds rate, which was widely expected by financial markets, was another validation of the recovery from the Great Recession. It also signaled Fed officials are convinced the economic slowdown over the winter was temporary.

“Following a slowdown in the first quarter, economic growth appears to have rebounded,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen told reporters. She and her colleagues “continue to expect that the ongoing strength of the economy will warrant gradual increases in the federal funds rate” to sustain a healthy labor market and price stability.

Supporting that view, members of the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee indicated that they expected one more 0.25 percentage point increase this year and three next year — the same as they had forecast in March.

And in another signal of their confidence in the economy, Fed officials announced that they intended this year to begin reducing the $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage securities and other assets the central bank has purchased since 2008 in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

Fed officials voted, 8-1, on Wednesday to raise the target level for the rate, a key benchmark for consumer and business lending, to between 1 percent and 1.25 percent. The rate, which can fluctuate a bit daily, usually settles somewhere in the middle.

Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, preferred to keep the rate at its current level and voted against the hike. In a policy statement, committee members said that economic activity “has been rising moderately.”

Although monthly job gains have moderated, they still have been solid, while household spending and business investment has been expanding, the statement said.

Fed officials slightly boosted their expectations for economic growth this year, to 2.2 percent from a 2.1 percent projection in March. The forecast for 2018 remained the same at 2.1 percent.

They also were more optimistic about unemployment. Fed policymakers now expect the rate to be at 4.3 percent by the end of the year, down from a March forecast of 4.5 percent.

The Labor Department reported the rate fell to 4.3 percent in May, the lowest since 2001. Fed officials expect the rate to decline to 4.2 percent next year.

But they downgraded their expectation for inflation to 1.6 percent this year. That was down from 1.9 percent in March. The Fed’s annual target is 2 percent, which policymakers still anticipate will be reached next year.

Investors have been eagerly expecting details for how the Fed would reduce the assets on its balance sheet.

The amount of assets soared from about $925 billion before the financial crisis hit as the Fed started to buy securities to try to stimulate the economy.

The plan announced on Wednesday calls for the Fed to reduce its holdings by allowing an increasing amount of maturing securities to be run off each month.

Over time, the amount of assets would be reduced “to a level appreciably below that seen in recent years” but larger than before the crisis, Fed officials said.