WASHINGTON — Final real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.0% in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday.
The final estimate of fourth-quarter real GDP was the same as the preliminary estimate released last month, and was in line with the 3.0% median increase projected by economists polled by Thomson Reuters. That represents the largest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2007, when GDP also rose 3.0%.
