The Federal Reserve made only one interest rate hike in 2016 but gave an impression that 3 rate hikes were possible in 2017. This is very unlikely for a number of reasons. The Federal Reserve has waited until the last minute for the past few years before making any interest hike. It is the opinion of many economists that the United States economy can not support much of an interest hike. Massive tax cuts, infrastructure spending, or deficit spending would be necessary to get the economy to a place it could support hikes in interest.