The U.S. economy is growing faster than expected as inflation falls, and the Biden administration is seizing the moment in a bid to counter one of the fiercest lines of attack by former President Donald Trump.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that GDP expanded 3.1 percent in 2023, a year that began with heavy odds of a recession and closed out with fourth-quarter growth that blew away projections. The news comes during a week bookended by sales pitches from two top officials, White House economic adviser Lael Brainard and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. At the heart of their message: President Joe Biden’s strategy to help the middle class is working.

“This story of the middle class is not separate from the state of the economy. It’s at the heart of it,” Yellen said in remarks in Chicago Thursday afternoon. “By middle class, I don’t mean a narrow or fixed group. I mean workers across industries and occupations— from firefighters to nurses to factory workers.”

Biden’s surrogates have a long road ahead in convincing the country, however, as Trump consistently trounces the sitting president in polling about the economy and has focused much of his........

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