WASHINGTON—Showing surprising resilience in the face of higher interest rates, the U.S. economy grew at a 2  annual pace from January through March as consumers spent at the fastest pace in nearly two years.
Thursday’s revised figure from the Commerce Department sharply upgraded its assessment of first-quarter growth from its previous estimate of a 1.3 percent annual rate.
Despite the uptick, the government’s third and final report on January–March economic growth still marked a deceleration from the 2.6 percent annual rate from October through December and the 3.2 percent growth from July through September. The economy has been slowed by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive drive to tame inflation through a series of interest rate hikes beginning early last year….