U.S. GDP grew by 2.6 percent in 2014's fourth quarter

U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 2.6 percent annual rate in 2014's fourth quarter, according to the Commerce Department.

The news comes after the U.S. economy posted its strongest growth in more than a decade, a 5 percent GDP reading in the third quarter of 2014. It also comes two days after the Federal Reserve said the U.S. economy was expanding at a "solid pace."

Economists had estimated that America's economy grew by three percent during the last three months of 2014. Reuters reports that lower gasoline prices heightened fourth-quarter consumer spending.

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"The consumer did the heavy lifting, and I don't think there is any reason to expect that to change in the first half of this year because of the enormous tailwind from lower gasoline prices," Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, told Reuters.