With a little more money in their wallets and a little less fear in their hearts, American consumers helped pull the economy up by its bootstraps in the final months of last year.

The gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced in the country, grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 2.6 percent in the previous period, according to a Commerce Department report released Friday.

Because of this slightly speedier expansion, the nation’s overall economic output has finally matched its peak before the recession. Still, given the millions of jobless American workers, the economy has fallen far short of what it could be if it were healthy, economists said.