4 Top Dividend Payers of the S&P 500

In periods of rising inflation and slowing economic growth, investors often turn to the stability and reliability of dividend stocks to see them through the tough times -- and with good reason. The asset managers at Hartford Funds studied the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 going all the way back to 1930, looking at stocks that pay dividends and those that don't, and found over that near-100-year period, dividend-paying stocks contributed 41% to the index's total return. It also includes the so-called "lost decade" of the 2000s, where the dot-com bubble, 9/11, and the financial markets collapse all conspired to generate negative returns for the S&P 500, but dividend stocks still gained 1.8%.