Savers and investors have few causes for complaint. But one frustration is the sluggish pace and shrunken heft of dividend increases. Although U.S. companies have more than $2 trillion in cash, scads of firms that not long ago raised dividends by 10% a year have morphed into relative misers: The median annualized increase within the S&P 500 dwindled to 6% in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Look at ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats (NOBL), an equal-weighted exchange-traded fund of 68 stocks with 25 consecutive years or more of raises. From 2015 to 2020, the fund hiked its payout by 11.5% a year. Since the start of 2021, that fell to 5.4%, limited by near-freezes from one-time cash spigots like Kimberly-Clark.
