The American economy grew at an annual pace of 2.5% last quarter, hobbled by slumps in home building and in corporate spending that show few signs of abating.

The third and final estimate of gross domestic product for the period from October to December compares with the 2.2% reported last month and an initial calculation of 3.5%, the Commerce Department said yesterday.

Increases in mortgage defaults and foreclosures threaten to delay housing’s recovery from its worst recession in 15 years, raising the prospect of a prolonged economic slowdown. The Federal Reserve’s prediction that the economy will continue to expand at a moderate pace hinges largely on the job market and rising wages. The Labor Department said yesterday that jobless claims unexpectedly fell to the lowest since January.

“There is no question growth will be slower this quarter and the next,” chief economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Mass., Nariman Behravesh, said. “Housing is looking to be in a deeper downturn and capital spending is looking quite weak. Employment growth is enough to keep consumers spending.”

The difference between the second and third estimates of growth was that inventories grew more than previously thought, suggesting production may be slow to pick up. Stockpiles subtracted 1.2 percentage points from growth, less than the 1.4 percentage points previously estimated.

“More notable than the aggregate revision per se were the sources of revision,” a senior economist at Banc of America Securities LLC in New York, Peter Kretzmer, said. “The slightly higher inventory accumulation in the final report does not add to economic momentum.”

On a more positive note, the number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to 308,000. Economists anticipated claims would rise to 320,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 316,750 from 324,000.

Today’s GDP report showed the core personal consumption expenditures price index, a measure of prices tied to consumer spending and excluding energy and food, rose at an annual rate of 1.8% last quarter. The index, which is watched by the Fed, rose at a 2.2% rate in the third quarter.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 48.39, or 0.4 percent, to 12,348.75 in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 5.30, or 0.4 percent, to 1422.53.

For all of last year, the economy grew 3.3%, compared with 3.2% in 2005. The third quarter’s growth rate was 2%. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had forecast fourth-quarter growth at 2.2%, according to the median of 75 estimates. Estimates ranged from 2% to 2.5%.

“The fourth-quarter softness is overwhelmingly laid at the doorstep of the housing slowdown,” the chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland, Richard DeKaser, said. “The drag will be with us all year, though not at the rates we saw last year.”