The pace of US economic expansion during last year’s final quarter got a bump on Thursday, when the BEA released the third and final estimate of Q4 GDP.

The world’s largest economy grew 3.4% in Q4, the update showed, better than the 3.2% from the second estimate (and the 3.3% from the advance read, for anyone old enough to remember January).

You can thank the American consumer. The personal consumption component was revised to show a 3.3% gain, better than the prior quarter and the briskest since Q1 of last year. Note that 3.3% is 0.5ppt better than January’s advance read, which was revised to show a 3% increase last month.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker suggests a slower, but still respectable, pace of growth for Q1 of 2024.

Long story short, the US isn’t anywhere near a recession. With allowances for the very real possibility that “long and variable lags” could exact their revenge at any time, a downturn doesn’t appear to be especially likely.

Unfortunately for bears, gross domestic income rose 4.8% in Q4. That was the strongest in over two years.

Skeptics had pointed to a persistent, multi-quarter disparity between GDP and GDI as a harbinger. That discrepancy’s gone now. (It won’t matter to bears. They’ll find a way to spin it. Failing that, they’ll call it a conspiracy of some kind.)

The average of GDP and GDI, a supplemental measure the NBER utilizes when making determinations about recession and cycle dating, rose 4.1% in Q4, up from 3.4% in Q3 and the fastest since Q4 of 2021.

On the inflation front, the PCE index rose at a 1.8% annual rate in the final reading for Q4. That was the coolest since 2020. The core gauge was revised to show a 2% increase.

Meanwhile, initial jobless claims for the week to March 23 were 210,000, fewer than expected.

Good luck with those recession calls.