3 Dividend Stocks For Perpetual Income

Dividend investing is ultimately about replacing your working income with a passive income stream for a secure retirement and financial freedom. The reality of inflation means your income stream can’t just be static. It must be perpetually growing.

To build your perpetual dividend machine, you must invest in a reasonably diversified basket of income securities that have the following characteristics:

1. Pay dividends (create income), the higher the yield the better
2. Are likely to grow their payments, the faster the better
3. Have safe dividends, so you are likely to see stable or better income during a recession

Dividend investments should be safe, growing income securities with at least decent yields. The following 3 perpetual income stocks have high yields and growing dividends.

Kenvue Inc. (KVUE)

• Dividend yield: 4.6%

Kenvue was spun off from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in 2023. It has three segments, including Self Care, Skin Health and Beauty, and Essential Health.

Self-Care’s product portfolio includes cough, cold, allergy, smoking cessation, and pain care products among others. Skin Health and Beauty holds products such as face, body, hair, and sun care. Essential Health contains products for women’s health, wound care, oral care, and baby care.

Well-known brands in Kenvue’s product line up include Tylenol, Listerine, Band-Aid, Neutrogena, Nicorette, and Zyrtec. These businesses contributed approximately 17% of Johnson & Johnson’s annual revenue.

On August 7th, 2025, Kenvue announced second quarter results for the period ending June 29th, 2025. For the quarter, revenue fell 4% to $3.84 billion, which was $10 million below expectations. Adjusted earnings-per-share of $0.29 compared unfavorably to $0.32 last year, but this was $0.01 ahead of estimates.

Organic sales were down 4.2% for the quarter while currency exchange acted as a 0.3% tailwind to results. For the quarter, volume fell 3.3% and unfavorable value realization lowered results by 0.9%.

Organic revenue declined 5.9% for Self Care, Skin Health was lower by 3.7%, and Beauty decreased 2.4%. Gross profit margin contracted 20 basis points to 58.9%. The company is undergoing a strategic review to unlock shareholder value.

Perpetual Income Stock: Sonoco Products (SON)

• Dividend yield: 4.6%

Sonoco Products provides packaging, industrial products and supply chain services to its customers. The markets that use the company’s products include those in the appliances, electronics, beverage, construction and food industries.

The company generates over $5 billion in annual sales. Sonoco Products is now composed of 2 major segments, Consumer Packaging, and Industrial Packaging, with all other businesses listed as “All Other”.

On April 16th, 2025, Sonoco Products raised its quarterly dividend 1.9% to $0.53, extending the company’s dividend growth streak to 49 consecutive years.

On July 23rd, 2025, Sonoco Products announced second quarter results for the period ending June 29th, 2025. For the quarter, revenue grew 17.9% to $1.91 billion, which was in-line with estimates. Adjusted earnings-per-share of $1.37 compared to $1.28 in the prior year, but was $0.08 less than expected.

Revenues and earnings benefited from the addition of Eviosys. For the quarter, Consumer Packaging revenues surged 110% to $1.23 billion, mostly due to contributions from Eviosys.

Volume growth was strong and favorable currency exchange rates also aided results. Industrial Paper Packing sales fell 2% to $588 million due to the impact of foreign currency exchange rates and lower volume following two plant divestitures in China last year.

A key competitive advantage for Sonoco Products is that the company is usually able to pass along rising raw material and transportation costs to its customers. Ability to pass along costs is an advantage as this shows that the company’s offerings are in demand. Also helping grow the top and bottom lines is Sonoco Products’ history of acquisitions. The Eviosys, Ball Metalpack, Conitex, and Can Packaging, and Eviosys are prime examples of growing through acquisitions.

Sonoco Products showed in the last recession that it is somewhat susceptible to deteriorating market conditions. Over the past decade the company has averaged a 47% dividend payout ratio, but it is projected to be much lower than that this year. Sonoco Products has a very reasonable dividend payout ratio of 35% based off our expectations for 2025. As such, Sonoco Products’ dividend appears safe.

Perpetual Income Stock: Black Hills Corp (BKH)

• Dividend yield: 4.7%

Black Hills Corporation is an electric utility that provides electricity and natural gas to customers in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The company has 1.35 million utility customers in eight states. Its natural gas assets include 49,200 miles of natural gas lines. Separately, it has ~9,200 miles of electric lines and 1.4 gigawatts of electric generation capacity.

Black Hills Corporation reported its second quarter earnings results on July 30. The company generated revenues of $439 million during the quarter, up 9% year-over-year. Black Hills Corporation generated earnings-per-share of $0.38 during the second quarter, which was ahead of the consensus analyst estimate. Earnings-per-share were up $0.05 versus the previous year’s quarter. Q4 and Q1 are seasonally stronger quarters due to higher natural gas demand for heating.

Black Hills Corporation forecasts earnings-per-share of $4.00 to $4.20 for the current fiscal year. Black Hills’ growth over the coming years depends on several factors. This includes rate reviews, which drive revenues and profits per kWh. Another factor is the expansion of the company’s existing assets via new utility infrastructure. Black Hills regularly adds new projects to its growth investment backlog. 

Black Hills’ planned growth investments include new electric transmission lines and new natural gas pipelines to service its customers. Rate reviews will allow Black Hills to recover investments into its existing systems, thereby more or less guaranteeing increasing revenues over time as long as volumes on existing systems remain unchanged in the long run, which should lead to rising profits down the road.

Demand for electricity and gas is not very cyclical, although it is dependent upon weather conditions to some degree. Thus, Black Hills should remain profitable under most circumstances. The fact that customers tend to stick with their provider means that Black Hills operates a relatively stable business model. The company should also be able to weather future recessions reasonably well.