GDP reported up 1.7 percent for 2011

1/28/2012

WASHINGTON -- The economy as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.7 percent in 2011 despite expansion in the fourth quarter at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The year's rate was barely more than half the growth in 2010. For all of 2012, the Federal Reserve estimates growth of roughly 2.5 percent.

Overall growth in 2011 was held back by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades, the Commerce Department said as it published the first of three estimates of fourth-quarter GDP.