Retirees who purchase stocks for investment income often have to settle for low yielding stocks. The S&P 500 Index yields just 1.3% right now, on average.

However, there are plenty of high dividend stocks that have strong current yields above 4%, and also have secure dividend payouts that can grow over time.

The following 3 dividend stocks have high dividend yields and safe payouts, which makes them attractive for retirement income.

Portland General Electric (POR)

Portland General Electric is an electric utility based in Portland, Oregon, providing electricity to more than 930,000 customers in 51 cities. The company owns or contracts more than 3.5 gigawatts of energy generation, between gas, coal, wind & solar, and hydro.

POR has about 3,000 full-time employees. In 2023, the corporation generated $2.9 billion in revenue. The utility company is diversified by customer, with 37% of retail deliveries going to residential customers, 34% to commercial clients, and 29% to industrial clients. The company is forecasting that 80% of its power delivered to customers by 2030 will be carbon free, and 100% carbon free by 2040. On April 19th, 2024, Portland General Electric announced a 5% increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.50 per share.

Portland General reported third quarter 2024 results on October 25th, 2024. The company reported net income of $94 million for the quarter, equal to $0.90 per diluted share on a GAAP basis, compared to $0.46 in Q3 2023. Retail energy deliveries rose 0.3% year-to-date compared to the same prior year period, but wholesale energy deliveries soared 45%. As a result, total energy deliveries rose 11%.

Company management upgraded the company’s long-term EPS growth guidance to 5% to 7% (from 4% to 6% previously), but from here we expect 4.5% earnings growth into 2029. As of October 2024, Portland General maintained that long-term guidance. Leadership also estimates that the company can grow the dividend by 5% to 7% over the long term, for a 6% mid-point, which is consistent with the trailing 10-year average dividend growth rate of 5.8%.

We expect that Portland General will generate this earnings growth through increased annual energy deliveries, as a result of commercial growth, and strong growth in industrial energy demand due to customer expansion. Rate increases, customer additions, and completion of construction projects will all further fuel Portland General’s earnings growth.

POR yields 4.8%.

T. Rowe Price Group (TROW)

T. Rowe Price Group is one of the largest publicly traded asset managers. The company provides a broad array of mutual funds, sub-advisory services, and separate account management for individual and institutional investors, retirement plans and financial intermediaries. The firm had assets under management of more than $1.6 trillion as of September 30th, 2024.

T. Rowe Price is a Dividend Aristocrat, having increased its dividend for 38 years in a row.

On November 1st, 2024, T. Rowe Price reported third quarter results for the period September June 30th, 2024. For the quarter, revenue grew 6.9% to $1.79 billion, though this was $60 million below estimates. Adjusted earnings-per-share of $2.57 compared favorably to $2.17 in the prior year and was $0.22 more than expected.

During the quarter, assets under management (AUM) improved $61.8 billion, or 3.9%, to $1.63 trillion. Market appreciation of $74 billion was partially offset by $12.2 billion of net client outflows. Operating expenses of $1.17 billion increased 7.6% year-over-year, but just 0.3% quarter-over-quarter.

T. Rowe Price’s earnings, as well as its dividends, have grown substantially over the last decade. While earnings did drop during the last financial crisis, the overall record has been solid. Since 2014, the company has grown earnings-per-share by an average compound rate of 5.9% per annum. Moreover, the company performed well in 2020.

Asset managers like T. Rowe have low variable costs. As a result, higher revenues, driven primarily by increasing assets under management, allow for margin expansion and attractive earnings growth rates. Assets under management grow in two basic ways: increased contributions and higher underlying asset values. While asset values are finicky, the trend is upward over the long-term.

On the contribution side, T. Rowe Price’s strong past performance is a key selling point and could attract customers going forward. In addition, T. Rowe has another EPS growth lever in the way of share repurchases.

TROW stock currently yields 4.3%.

General Mills (GIS)

General Mills is a packaged food giant, with more than 100 brands and operations in more than 100 countries. General Mills has not cut its dividend for 124 consecutive years. It has returned to growth mode in the last five years, mostly thanks to the acquisition of Blue Buffalo and the pandemic, which greatly increased food consumption at home.

On September 12th, 2024, General Mills announced that it agreed to sell its North American yogurt business for $2.1 billion in cash. The proceeds will be used for share repurchases. The sale of this business, which generated 8% of total sales last year, is expected to reduce earnings-per-share by ~3% in the first year after the sale.

In mid-December, General Mills reported (12/18/24) results for Q2-2025. Net sales and organic sales grew 2% and 1%, respectively, over last year’s quarter thanks to higher volumes, which more than offset a slight decline in the price due to the composition of the product mix.

This marked an improvement vs. the marginal decline reported in the previous quarter. Gross margin expanded from 34.4% to 36.9%, as cost savings offset input inflation. Adjusted earnings-per-share grew 12%, from $1.25 to $1.40, and exceeded the analysts’ consensus by $0.18.

General Mills has grown its earnings-per-share at a 5.2% average annual rate in the last decade. In recent years, this decelerated, but the company has accelerated again since the onset of the pandemic. We expect approximately 5.0% annual earnings-per-share growth over the next five years, mostly thanks to Blue Buffalo. Earnings-per-share will also benefit from a decent amount of share repurchases.

GIS stock currently yields 4.0%.

Disclosure: No positions in any stocks mentioned

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Bob Ciura has worked at Sure Dividend since October 2016. He oversees all content for Sure Dividend and its partner sites. Bob received a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from DePaul