America’s economy expanded at an annualized pace of 6.9 percent in the final quarter of 2021, sharply higher than consensus forecasts of 5.5 percent, fueled in part by a buildup of inventories and solid consumer spending. The economic growth figures, released Jan. 27, also show that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) for the full year 2021 grew by 5.7 percent compared to the prior year, marking the strongest whole-year performance since 1984. In pandemic year 2020, the U.S. economy contracted by 3.4 percent. “The economy is getting closer to something like normal, but service consumption is still depressed. Investment is very strong, state and local spending is lagging,” Dean Baker, a senior economist at the think-tank Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a tweet. Increases in private inventory investment, personal consumption expenditures, exports, and nonresidential fixed investment drove GDP higher. These gains were partly offset by decreases in …