Breathe a tiny sigh of relief, if not exactly contentment: the American economy grew just barely in the last quarter of 2012.

Output expanded at an annual rate of 0.1 percent, which is basically indistinguishable from no growth at all and which is far below the growth needed to get unemployment back to normal. But at least the economy did not shrink, as the Commerce Department estimated in January, when the first report suggested that output had contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent.

The department’s latest estimate for economic output, released on Thursday, showed that growth was depressed by declines in military spending (possibly in anticipation of the across-the-board spending cuts that are to begin on Friday) and in how much companies restocked shelves.