11 Dividend Stocks With 55 or More Years of Payout Growth

Long-term income investors know that finding dividend stocks with decades of interrupted payments is only part of the winning formula for income investing.

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Long-term income investors know that finding dividend stocks with decades of interrupted payments is only part of the winning formula for income investing. Dividend growth matters, too – which is exactly why investors cherish the Dividend Aristocrats.

Dividend Aristocrats are companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index that have hiked their dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years. Rising dividends naturally make these stocks more attractive to new income investors, and steady payout hikes reward existing investors with increasingly higher yields on their shares’ original buy-in cost.

Most importantly, regular dividend hikes fuel the magic of compounding. Indeed, many of the best stocks of all time have long histories of dividend growth.

Since reliable dividend stocks with growing payouts can provide some comfort amid market uncertainty, we took a look at the 11 Dividend Aristocrats with the longest histories of annual dividend increases. After all, when a dividend stock manages to raise its payout through good times and bad, decade after decade, you know management is making its income-reliant shareholders a top priority.

Disclaimer

Data is as of March 20 unless otherwise listed. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent quarterly payout and dividing by the share price. Dividend history based on company information and S&P data. Dividend-growth streaks include the current year if the company has announced a dividend hike in 2019. Analysts’ ratings provided by FactSet via WSJ.com. The list of Dividend Aristocrats is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

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.