Welcome to earnings season! For the second time this year, companies are publishing their latest quarterly results. What tends to emerge during any earnings season is a fresh set of dividend raises, and this one is shaping up to be no exception.

As if to set the scene for the coming rush of earnings reports and accompanying dividend lifts, two top stock market names -- retail powerhouse Costco Wholesale (COST 0.12%) and consumer goods mainstay Procter & Gamble (PG -0.32%) -- have upped their payouts. Here's a closer look at both dividend raises.

1. Costco

Costco isn't, in fact, one of the vast number of publicly traded companies publishing their earnings in the coming days and weeks. But that's not stopping it from declaring a dividend raise, and a double-digit one at that. In mid-April, the retail giant cranked its quarterly payout 13% higher to lift it above the $1 mark, to $1.02 per share.

Costco occupies a unique place in the American retail landscape, as it's a mass retailer that requires membership to transact in its stores. Those membership fees form a solid revenue base, and allow the company to be extremely competitive on prices. Margins in this game can be thin, but Costco management is skilled at keeping those membership rolls high and its stores crowded with shoppers.

Meanwhile, people continue to sign up to be part of this club, and they're chucking more stuff into their shopping carts.

In the company's most recently reported quarter -- considered somewhat disappointing, by the way, due at least partially to its revenue miss -- Costco's take from both membership fees and net sales (of goods) rose 6% year over year. Investors should have been more impressed; that's a good performance for a monster business so firmly entrenched in the market.

Costco's dividend raise will take effect next month, with the enhanced amount being paid on May 19 to investors of record as of May 5. At the most recent closing share price, that $1.02 per share would yield 0.8%.

2. Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble, a "slow and steady wins the race" stock if there ever was one, declared a more modest dividend raise than Costco. Shortly before unveiling its third quarter of fiscal 2023 results toward the end of April, the company declared a 3% bump to slightly over $0.94 per share.

What Procter & Gamble often lacks in dividend dynamism it makes up for in consistency and longevity -- this is the 67th year in a row it has pushed its payout higher. That's one of the top streaks currently alive among publicly traded companies.

The superpower that allows Procter & Gamble to continuously and relentlessly declare dividend raises is its mighty free cash flow. This stems from the company's huge, unbeatable portfolio of top consumer goods brands.

The flip side of this ubiquity is that the company isn't going to suddenly experience a burst of growth. Rather, volume gains and the occasional price increase will nudge the top line higher, and keep it comfortably (if not spectacularly) in the black on the bottom line. Full-year 2022 was entirely in character for Procter & Gamble -- revenue rose by 5% over 2021, while net income crawled 3% higher. 

But few buy the stock for its explosive growth potential; this is a classic and relatively secure play for income investors. With its latest dividend raise, the company is keeping that crowd sweet the way it knows best.

Procter & Gamble's new quarterly dividend is to be dispensed on or after May 15, to stockholders who held their shares on April 21. It yields a theoretical, and entirely respectable, 2.4%.