Not every company is slashing its dividend these days. Some of the market's better performers are easing up on their purse strings and sending more money out to their shareholders.

Readers of Income Investor can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past quarter.

Let's start with Nordson (NASDAQ:NDSN). The maker of precision dispensing equipment also knows how to work its dispensing magic on shareholders: It jacked up its quarterly dividend by 4% to $0.19 a share. Investors should be used to this by now, since Nordson has bumped up its payouts in each of the past 46 years.

Getty Realty (NYSE:GTY) is also pumping up its yield and paying its shareholders $0.475 a share every three months. That's just a 1% upgrade, but this is the fifth consecutive year that Getty has come through for its investors. A REIT is declaring chunkier disbursements? Believe it. Then again, Getty's specialty is recession-resistant convenience stores and gasoline stations.

Lorillard (NYSE:LO) is also lighting up its distributions. The country's third-largest cigarette maker is growing its quarterly rate by 9% to $1.00 a share. Lorillard's smokes include Newport, Kent, and True.

Finally, we have Cincinnati Financial (NASDAQ:CINF) excelling at coverage. The insurer is delivering its 48th straight year of announcing higher payouts. Its new quarterly dividend is $0.395 a share, marginally ahead of its previous $0.39-per-share rate.

Some of these moves may not seem like much, but consider the less savory moves that took place in recent days. Pacific Continental (NASDAQ:PCBK), Community Bankshares, and Mayflower Bancorp all declared lower distributions last week.

Subscribers to Income Investor can appreciate the companies sending more and more money to their investors. The newsletter service singles out companies that are committed to growing their distributions with market-thumping results.

Want to see what's being recommended these days? Give the newsletter service a shot with a 30-day trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing to get a boost will be your interest.