Washington ? The U.S. economy grew faster than expected this spring, boosting hopes for stronger growth in the second half of this year.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the gross domestic product, the total production of goods and services in the United States, increased at a 2.4 percent annual rate in the April through June quarter.

That greatly exceeded Wall Street forecasts of 1.5 percent and was up sharply from 1.4 percent in the first three months of the year. Analysts are predicting growth of 3.5 percent or more for the rest of this year.

Second-quarter growth was spurred by the fastest surge in military spending since the Korean War. While that’s unlikely to be repeated, the economy’s performance also reflected healthy consumer spending — particularly for cars, furniture and appliances — and a long-awaited pickup in business investment, both signs that the economy may finally be on the mend.

“Absent another shock, absent another accounting scandal or another Iraq, I think we’ve turned the corner from recovery to expansion,” said Brian Nottage, an economist at Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa.-based economic analysis firm.

The Bush administration, banking on a strong recovery to help President Bush win re-election next year, welcomed the GDP report.

“I was very encouraged,” Treasury Secretary John Snow told reporters after testifying before a Senate committee on an unrelated topic. “That’s a really nice pickup, and I think it indicates clearly the economy is turning and that the recovery is well under way.”

Other economic reports Thursday also suggested a nascent recovery.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell by 3,000 to 388,000 last week, the third straight weekly decline, the Labor Department said.

The Chicago purchasing managers index, a measure of manufacturing activity in the Chicago area, rose from 52.5 to 55.9 in July, much higher than anticipated. A reading above 50 signals that the sector is expanding.

Analysts will be watching two key indicators on Friday: the national purchasing managers index, which stood at 49.8 in June, and the July employment report. The unemployment rate jumped to 6.4 percent in June.

Forecasters were expecting a more sluggish GDP report, because of the economic uncertainty created early in the spring by the Iraq war.

But the war appears to have boosted the economy, with military spending growing at a 44 percent annual rate and contributing 1.7 percentage points to the overall 2.4 percent growth.

Consumer spending, by far the largest part of the economy, grew at a 3.3 percent annual clip, up from 2 percent in the first quarter. Motor vehicle purchases rose at a 33 percent rate.

Spending on new homes and renovations grew more slowly than in the first quarter but remained healthy, increasing at a 6 percent clip.

Perhaps the most important development was a rebound in business spending. Investment in equipment and buildings grew at a 6.9 percent rate, reversing a 4.4 percent fall in the January to March period.

While consumers continued to shop, business spending declined for most of the last 2 1/2 years. Economists view a return in business investment as vital to any sustainable recovery.

Spending on buildings, which fell precipitously last year, rose 4.8 percent, the first increase since the fall of 2001.

However, some analysts cautioned that the recovery in business investment isn’t yet broad-based, with most of the new spending concentrated in high-tech equipment and software.

Many computers are imported, so they don’t add directly to domestic economic growth. “The increase in computer investment is having relatively little impact on GDP,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C.

A sharp rise in overall imports, together with a fall in exports, offset some of the spending growth. Consumers may be buying more furniture, but much of it is imported. Meanwhile, slow economies in Europe and Japan aren’t creating much demand for U.S. exports.