Wall St. Insights The seemingly endless political season is almost over. It’s possible we won’t know the winner for a while. Sit back and let dividends do the heavy lifting for a simple, steady path to serious wealth creation over time.

During the 50-year period between 1973 and 2023, non-dividend-paying stocks in the S&P 500 index delivered a 4.27% average annual return. Their dividend-paying cousins performed more than twice as well with an average annual return of 9.

The success of these three elite dividend growers shows in their market-crushing gains over the prior 10 years. Costco's 739.7% total return, along with Visa's 462% and AbbVie's 371% returns, demonstrates how combining competitive advantages with shareholder-friendly capital allocation builds substantial wealth.