Stocks With the Highest Dividend Yields in the S&P 500
Telecoms and a regional bank are among the stocks with the highest dividend yields in the benchmark index.


Experienced equity income investors know that blindly buying stocks with the highest dividend yields can be a dangerous game.
Indeed, an unusually high dividend yield can actually be a warning sign. That's because stock prices and dividend yields move in opposite directions. It's possible that a too-good-to-be-true dividend yield is simply a side effect of a stock having lost a lot of value.
And anytime a company's stock is slumping badly, it's worth wondering if its dividend is sustainable at current levels.
Case in point: look at what happened with Newell Brands (NWL) earlier this year.
Newell, whose portfolio of products ranges from Rubbermaid and Sharpie to Oster and Yankee Candle, is having a tough 2023. Shares lost a third of their value through mid-May, pushing up the yield on NWL's dividend to as much as 9.7%.
That seemed pretty obviously unsustainable, and indeed it was. On May 16, Newell cut its quarterly dividend by almost 70% to 7 cents per share. The company intends to use the cash formerly earmarked for shareholders to pay down debt, which is probably a good idea. Nonetheless, the yield on Newell's dividend tumbled to below 3% from knocking on the door of 10%.
Stocks with the highest dividend yields
So, yes, sometimes stocks with the highest dividend yields can be fool's gold. And this could be pertinent to a least a couple of the stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500 today.
Two of the companies listed below have entered elite-yield territory only because their stock prices have come under duress. And that has at least a few analysts worried about the sustainability of the payouts going forward.
With those caveats out of the way, below please find the five S&P 500 stocks with the highest dividend yields.
Market data, analysts' estimates and analysts' recommendations are as of November 6, 2023, courtesy of YCharts and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Stocks are listed by dividend yields, from lowest to highest.

AT&T
- Market value: $112.5 billion
- Dividend yield: 6.99%
- Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy
AT&T (T) is the first of two telecommunications companies on our list of stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500. No surprise there. Thanks to customers sending in their checks every month, telcos are known for their generous and dependable dividends.
In AT&T's case, the company has paid uninterrupted dividends since 1984. Until 2019, it had raised its payout annually for more than three decades, making it a one-time member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats.
Shares were off about 15% for the year-to-date through November 6, hurt in part by concerns over the costs associated with cleaning up lead contamination. Although the slumping stock price has pushed up T's dividend yield, it actually remains below its own five-year average.
Shareholders can also take comfort in the fact that AT&T has been chipping away at its heavy debt load and freeing up cash. The company generated free cash flow (or the cash remaining after expenses, capital expenditures and financial commitments are met) of $103.4 billion in 2022. That's much better than the negative free cash flow of $67.7 billion AT&T recorded the previous year. Free cash flow is what ultimately supports dividend payments, so this was a welcome development for shareholders.
Of the 28 analysts covering AT&T tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 10 call it a Strong Buy, three have it at Buy, 13 say it's a Hold and two rate it at Strong Sell. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Buy with modest conviction.

KeyCorp
- Market value: $10.5 billion
- Dividend yield: 7.20%
- Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy
KeyCorp (KEY) is a regional bank whose stock was already under pressure along with the rest of the sector – and then things got worse. Both Moody's and S&P Global Ratings downgraded the lender's credit rating over the summer, citing issues such as constrained profitability and a "tough" lending environment.
Shares in KeyCorp are now off about 35% for the year-to-date, pushing up the yield on the dividend to well above its five-year average of 5.6%.
The elevated yield on KeyCorp's dividend naturally has investors worried about a potential cut. Somewhat unhelpfully, experts are split on whether the payout is safe.
JPMorgan Chase, for example, upgraded KEY to Neutral (the equivalent of Hold) from Underweight (Sell) in early August, noting that the bank has "enough runway to manage its capital to required levels with less much risk of a dividend cut over the near-term."
Other observers are less optimistic. Speaking for the bears, CFRA Research analyst Alexander Yokum reiterated his Strong Sell call on the name in mid-October, saying the bank's high payout ratio was a liability. Yokum has warned clients in the past that KEY's dividend is in danger of getting cut.
CRFA Research's concerns notwithstanding, Wall Street tips toward bullishness on the name. Of the 22 analysts covering KEY tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 10 call it a Strong Buy, four say Buy and eight have it at Hold. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Buy, with moderate conviction.

Verizon
- Market value: $150.1 billion
- Dividend yield: 7.38%
- Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy
Telecommunications stocks such as Verizon Communications (VZ) are known for producing steady and generous dividends. As the only telecom in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Verizon gets more than its fair share of attention from institutional investors looking for equity income.
True, VZ sports one of the highest dividend yields in the benchmark index partly because shares are off about 10% so far this year. As with AT&T, the stock is down partly because of concerns over the costs associated with cleaning up lead contamination. That said, at 7.38%, VZ's dividend yield is not wildly out of line with past levels. The stock's three-year average dividend yield stands at 6.5%.
Long-term investors seeking out the best dividend growth stocks will be happy to know that this telco is also a reliable dividend grower. VZ has hiked its payout annually for 19 consecutive years. And the dividend increases should keep coming.
How can we be confident of this? Verizon generated free cash flow of $17.8 billion for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2023. And that was after disbursing almost $11 billion in dividends.
As for VZ stock's prospects for beating the market over the next 12 to 18 months, Wall Street's consensus recommendation stands at Buy, albeit with low conviction, per S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Walgreens Boots Alliance
- Market value: $18.8 billion
- Dividend yield: 8.68%
- Analysts' consensus recommendation: Hold
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is a good example of a dividend stock whose yield is unusually elevated because its share price is in a funk.
And what a funk it's been. WBA is off more than 40% on a price basis for the year-to-date, pushing the yield on its dividend well past its five-year average of 4.2%.
Ordinarily, a yield that's moved this high because of a diving share price would be reason enough to wonder if the company's dividend is sustainable at current levels. So it should come as something of a relief that the pharmacy chain in late October declared a quarterly dividend of 48 cents per share, unchanged from the previous five quarters.
Walgreens Boots Alliance likes to note that it and its predecessor company, Walgreen, have paid a dividend for 364 straight quarters, or 91 years. The thing is, even if its dividend is safe, WBA remains very low on the list of analysts' top-ranked Dow Jones stocks.
Indeed, Wall Street expects this long-time market laggard to at best match the performance of the broader market over the next 12 to 18 months. Of the 16 analysts covering WBA surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, two rate it at Strong Buy, two call it a Buy, 10 have it at Hold, one says Sell and one rates it at Strong Sell. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Hold.

Altria Group
- Market value: $71.8 billion
- Dividend yield: 9.64%
- Analysts' consensus recommendation: Hold
Altria Group (MO) always sports a generous dividend yield, but it rarely claims the top spot on the list of stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500.
The deal with Altria is that there isn't much growth to be found in the U.S. tobacco business. And so the company known for Marlboro cigarettes and Copenhagen dipping tobacco has to keep shareholders happy with generous and reliable dividends.
But dividends are only part of the story when it comes to Altria's status as a defensive equity income stock. Sales of its addictive products tend to hold up well when economic times get tough. MO stock also tends to trade with much lower volatility relative to the broader market.
Those characteristics – as well as a dividend yield of more than 9.6% and 13 consecutive years of dividend increases – make MO a pretty good place to hide in a bad market.
That was certainly the case in 2022, when the S&P 500 generated a total return (price change plus dividends) of -18%. It was one of the worst years ever for stocks, and yet MO delivered a total return of +4.4%.
By the same token, defensive stocks like Altria tend to underperform in rising markets. And that's certainly been the case in 2023. While the S&P 500's total return came to about 15% through November 6, MO's total return stood at -5.1%.
Analysts expect Altria only to match the performance of the broader market over the next 12 to 18 months, assigning it a consensus recommendation of Hold, per S&P Global Market Intelligence.
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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.
A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.
Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.
In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.
Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.
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