One of the first things you hear about during recessions and market crashes are blue-chip companies slashing or suspending dividend payments.
The 2008 financial crisis made this especially clear. Major Wall Street banks, once considered bulletproof, were forced to cut dividends to preserve cash.
Bank of America Corp. (ticker: BAC), for example, cut its quarterly dividend from $2.56 per share to $1.28 in October 2008, then again to just $0.04 per share in January 2009 as it faced massive earnings losses, a collapsing mortgage book and growing pressure from regulators to conserve capital.
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So, what sets apart the companies that not only maintained but actually increased their dividends during these financially stressful times? It often comes down to structural differences in their business models and a long-term mindset from management.
Dividends aren’t free money; they’re funded by actual business performance. Sustaining and growing them year after year requires far more than just solid earnings growth. It also demands healthy, growing cash flows, disciplined capital allocation and balance sheets resilient enough to weather shocks.
This is why dividend track records matter to investors. A cut or suspension often sends capital fleeing, but decades of consistent increases act like a magnet for those seeking steady, rising income.
That’s where terms like “Dividend Aristocrats” and “Dividend Kings” come in. Ratings agency and financial data giant S&P Global maintains several indexes tracking this performance.
The most well-known index is the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, which includes S&P 500 companies with at least 25 consecutive years of dividend increases.
But even more exclusive is the S&P Dividend Monarchs Index, informally known as the Dividend Kings. It includes companies from the broader S&P 1500 that have raised dividends for at least 50 straight years.
“On average, the Dividend Monarchs have increased their dividends for 56 straight years,” says Dave Mazza, CEO at Roundhill Investments. “As a group, they exhibit higher return on equity than the broader market, coupled with lower earnings variability. Characteristics of this nature have historically translated to lower share price volatility and improved drawdowns.”
Here are seven of the best Dividend King stocks to buy and hold forever:
| Stock | Yield | Dividend growth streak (years) |
| Abbott Laboratories (ABT) | 1.8% | 53 |
| Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) | 3.4% | 63 |
| Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) | 2.6% | 69 |
| Coca-Cola Co. (KO) | 2.9% | 63 |
| Walmart Inc. (WMT) | 1.0% | 52 |
| Altria Group Inc. (MO) | 6.7% | 56 |
| Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) | 2.0% | 50 |
Abbott Laboratories (ABT)
“Health care companies tend to dominate the list because they possess predictable earnings growth, with profits that are not overly economically sensitive,” says James Lewis, portfolio manager and senior equity research analyst at Bartlett Wealth Management. “Thus, with a stable earnings stream, these companies are willing to allocate capital through dividends and grow the rate of that payment.”
Diversified health care firms like Abbott Laboratories dominate the Dividend Kings list. In addition to pharmaceuticals, Abbott operates in medical devices, such as stents and catheters, and consumer health products, including recognizable brands like Ensure and Pedialyte. This multi-pronged business model makes the company less cyclical and better positioned to maintain consistent cash flows.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
“In addition to being a Dividend King, Johnson & Johnson also holds the distinction of being one of the remaining few AAA-credit-rated companies,” says Craig Giventer, managing director of portfolio strategies at Focus Partners Wealth. “The company’s strong position in both pharmaceuticals and med tech allow the company to generate attractive rates of revenues, earnings and free-cash-flow growth.”
Johnson & Johnson currently maintains a credit rating even higher than that of Treasury bonds, which Moody’s recently downgraded to Aa1. This means a lender or bondholder has a statistically higher chance of being repaid in full and on time by Johnson & Johnson than by the U.S. government. That’s a striking vote of confidence in the company’s financial health, cash flow reliability and management discipline.
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)
“P&G’s competitive strengths lie in its diverse portfolio, which provides stability and caters to a wide range of needs; its massive scale, which translates to better deals with suppliers and retailers; and its strong brand recognition with consumers,” says Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital. It is one of America’s oldest companies, dating back to 1837.
“P&G boasts a diversified operating model across five product segments, 10 product categories, operations in 70 nations, and sales in over 180 countries and territories,” Schulman explains. Popular brands offered by the firm, such as Pampers diapers, Downy fabric softener, Tide detergent, Bounty paper towels, Gillette razors and Old Spice deodorant, can be found in virtually every American household.
Coca-Cola Co. (KO)
There’s more than one Coca-Cola stock out there, but only KO is a Dividend King. The others are territorial bottlers that handle manufacturing, packaging and distribution in specific regions. Coca-Cola itself produces syrup at extremely low cost, sells it to bottlers at high margins and reinvests its ample free cash flow into global marketing and carefully targeted growth regions like Latin America.
“Coca-Cola benefits from a category where consumers are brand aware — that is, over the years, they have developed products that resonate with preferences,” Lewis says. “It also operates in categories where store brands have not been able to gain market share due to poor quality. This has made its products less discretionary, which leads to stable profit growth and a strong commitment to dividends.”
[Read: 7 Dividend Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever]
Walmart Inc. (WMT)
“Walmart is the poster child of an old-economy company who has pivoted, and it is showing up in its margins, profitability and growth,” says Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments. “I continue to like the company as a serious omni-channel, tech-driven retailer.” Founded in 1962, the company remains under the control of the Walton family via direct ownership and trusts.
Since its founding, Walmart has strategically weathered multiple competitive threats from retail upstarts. To counter Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) e-commerce dominance, Walmart aggressively expanded its digital presence through major investments in online order fulfillment. To take on Costco Wholesale Corp.’s (COST) membership-based, bulk discount warehouse model, Walmart scaled up Sam’s Club as an affordable alternative.
Altria Group Inc. (MO)
Altria isn’t a stock that environmental, social and governance (ESG) conscious investors tend to own, but there’s no denying its resilience. Despite decades of tightening regulation and a steady decline in combustible tobacco use, Altria has maintained its dividend growth streak by expanding into non-combustible alternatives like oral nicotine pouches and snus, along with a stake in vaporizers.
Much of this was possible thanks to Altria’s ruthless efficiency. Even as smoking rates steadily fell, the company boosted profit margins by slashing costs and steadily raising prices, a strategy that worked because much of its remaining customer demand was inelastic. This gave Altria the cash runway to invest in a smokeless future while continuing to pay one of the Dividend Kings’ highest yields.
Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP)
You’ve probably noticed many Dividend Kings come from sectors like consumer staples and health care. The essential nature of their products and services makes their earnings less volatile, which supports consistent shareholder return programs. But one outlier on the list is ADP, an industrial firm. Recently joining the Dividend Kings ranks, ADP plays a quiet but vital role in the white-collar workforce.
The company provides both payroll processing and human capital management software, operating with high margins and an asset-light balance sheet. It’s so embedded in the U.S. economic system that its payroll data is used by economists and traders to track private-sector job growth, serving as a key complement to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official monthly Employment Situation report.
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7 Dividend Kings to Buy and Hold Forever originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 06/24/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
