Not every company is slashing its dividend these days. Some of the market's better performers are easing up on their purse strings, sending more money out to their shareholders. Let's take a closer look at some of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.

Let's start with Family Dollar (NYSE:FDO). Bargain hunters have been flocking to discounters, and the retailer is passing some of that action along to its shareholders. Family Dollar's new quarterly dividend of $0.155 a share is a 15% improvement.

ONEOK Partners (NYSE:OKS) is also powering up its payout. The natural gas limited partnership's new distribution rate of $1.10 a share may be a marginal upgrade from its previous $1.09-a-share disbursement, but the Motley Fool Income Investor recommendation's dividend has soared 38% since April 2006.

Stop the presses! Even a newspaper company is reporting chunkier payouts. Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) investors will now be receiving $2.25 a share every three months, 5% more than before.

Finally, we have McGraw-Hill (NYSE:MHP) turning the page on its yield. The publisher's new quarterly distributions are going up 4% to $0.235 a share. McGraw-Hill has now increased its dividend in each of the past 37 years.

Some of these moves may not seem like much, but there are plenty of companies that haven't been able to support even their current dividends lately. Citizens & Northern, OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC), and Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) all slashed their quarterly payouts.

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

Want to see what is being recommended these days? Go ahead and give the newsletter service a shot with a 30-day free trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing that will get increased will be your interest.