Two Recessions Couldn’t Stop These 4 Healthcare Stocks From Raising Dividends
Two brutal recessions wiped out dividends across the market, yet a handful of healthcare companies kept raising their payouts through every quarter of both downturns. Here are the four names that made it happen and whether their income streaks can…
Two recessions inside two decades tested every corner of the market, and a small club of healthcare names paid you more every year through both. The 2008 to 2009 downturn and the 2020 COVID shock hit consumer spending, elective procedures, and hospital budgets, yet the four healthcare stocks below kept raising quarterly dividends the entire way. The shared hook is durability. Abbott CEO Robert Ford recently told investors that “diagnostic test results inform approximately 70% of all healthcare decisions, making testing volumes a reliable barometer of overall healthcare activity and demand,” and that demand held up in both slowdowns. Here is what the income math looks like today across four blue-chip healthcare dividend growers.
Johnson & Johnson: 64 Years of Raises and a $21 Billion FCF Machine
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ | JNJ Price Prediction) trades at $266.60 and carries a dividend yield of 1.97%, with an annualized forward payout of $5.36 per share after the April increase from $1.30 to $1.34 quarterly.
J&J ended Q2 2026 with roughly $21 billion in cash and marketable securities, guided full-year free cash flow “approaching $21 billion,” and posted year-to-date FCF of about $8.7 billion. Trailing EPS of $8.68 comfortably covers the $5.24 trailing dividend. The dividend history file shows uninterrupted quarterly payments stretching back to 1999, and management flagged 64 consecutive years of dividend increases at its Q1 earnings.
The bull case for income holders simply comes down to diversification. CFO Joe Wolk described a “broad, durable portfolio that has 28 platforms, each generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue,” and reiterated that J&J “remain[s] committed to returning capital directly to shareholders, primarily through our dividend.” Oncology is doing the heavy lifting, with Darzalex up 17.6%, Carvykti up 47.7%, and Tremfya up 71% in Q2. Shares are up 31.6% year to date.
The most visible risk with this stock seems to be Stelara as sales fell 55.7% in Q2 on biosimilar competition, a headwind that will linger into 2027.
Abbott Laboratories: A Dividend Aristocrat With a 54-Year Streak
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) trades at $110.10 after a 8.57% pullback year to date, which has lifted the yield to 2.22%. The quarterly payout rose from $0.59 to $0.63 this year, and the annualized forward is $2.52.
Abbott is a bona fide S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat with 54 consecutive years of raises and paid its 410th consecutive quarterly dividend in August. Trailing EPS of $3.12 covers the $2.48 trailing dividend, and Q2 shareholder returns totaled $2.1 billion via dividends and buybacks. The company operates with a low 0.581 beta, useful in a defensive sleeve.
The bull case for this stock is portfolio breadth. Q2 comparable sales grew 4.8%, adjusted EPS came in at $1.31, and full-year adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $5.45 to $5.60. Continuous glucose monitoring sales cleared $2 billion in the quarter growing 9.5%, and cancer diagnostics grew 13%. Ford summed it up: “Demand for high acuity, life-saving products is very inelastic.”
The risk for Abbott is its nutrition segment which slipped 3.1%, not to mention, CGM competition from Dexcom is continuing to intensify.
Medtronic: Highest Yield in the Group, Backed by $5.4 Billion in FCF
Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) is the yield leader of this bundle at 3.16%, with shares at $90.83. The board bumped the quarterly payout from $0.71 to $0.72 in June, taking the annualized forward to $2.88. Management has raised the dividend for 49 consecutive years, one shy of the 50-year Dividend King club (we ranked ten current Kings by valuation in a free report here).
Fiscal 2026 free cash flow was $5.4 billion, “the strongest it has been since 2022”, and Medtronic ended the year with $9.2 billion in cash and investments. Trailing EPS of $3.79 covers the $2.84 trailing dividend, and the forward P/E of 15 is well below Abbott’s 20 and J&J’s 23.
Q4 revenue grew 9.9%, appeasing the bulls and capping the company’s “strongest top-line performance in 10 years.” Cardiac ablation delivered 78% worldwide growth, with pulsed field ablation (PFA) up 145% globally. FY27 guidance calls for organic revenue growth of 6.75% to 7.25% and adjusted EPS of $5.90 to $6.00.
On the other hand, Medtronic absorbed roughly $185 million of tariff pressure in FY26, and the pending Diabetes business separation adds execution complexity.
Becton, Dickinson: Post-Spin Cash Machine Buyers Are Rediscovering
Becton, Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) rounds out this bundle at $188.67, up 25.88% year to date, and yielding 2.23%. The quarterly dividend stepped up to $1.05 this year, with an annualized forward of $4.20. Dividend records show continuous quarterly payments and steady annual increases from $0.37 in 2010 to $1.05 in 2026, a track record that ran uninterrupted through both recessions in the file.
Year-to-date FCF was $1.7 billion, an increase of 45% versus the prior year. CFO Vitor Roque said “Year to date, we returned $3.1 billion to shareholders, including approximately $2.3 billion in share repurchases, and $0.9 billion in dividends,” while CEO Tom Polen reiterated the target of “90% free cash flow conversion… over time.” Trailing EPS of $5.82 covers the $4.19 trailing dividend, and the forward P/E of 14 is the cheapest in this group.
The bull case for Becton Dickinson is that this is the first full quarter as the more focused “new BD” after the February 2026 Biosciences and Diagnostics spinoff. Q3 revenue was $5 billion, up 4.4%, adjusted EPS was $3.23, up 4.9%, and full-year adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $12.62 to $12.72. Optionality on GLP-1 injection pens (roughly 100 agreements across novel and biosimilar programs) is a genuine growth kicker.
The risk still remains its post-spin transition. FY27 revenue is guided to low single-digit growth as the alarmist remediation headwind runs off, and net leverage sits at 2.9 times versus a 2.5 times long-term target.
Bottom Line for Income Investors
These four names offer durability over headline yield. J&J, Abbott, Medtronic, and BD paid rising dividends straight through the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID shock because their cash generation runs on inelastic demand: drugs, diagnostics, devices, and the plumbing hospitals cannot skip. Medtronic delivers the fattest yield today, BD offers the lowest multiple, Abbott brings Aristocrat pedigree, and J&J anchors the group with 28 billion-dollar platforms and a 64-year raise streak. For a defensive income sleeve built to survive the next downturn, this is the healthcare shortlist.
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Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics. Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications. A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.
