The telecom giant's yield is more than five times the S&P 500's average yield. One of the more notable dividend stocks of the last few years is Verizon Communications (VZ -1.61%). The company has been making regular payouts since soon after it split from AT&T in the early 1980s. Moreover, it has a 17-year streak of payout hikes. Contrast that with AT&T, which slashed its payout in 2022 after more than three decades of consecutive annual increases and hasn't boosted it since. That move implicitly strengthene ...