Dividend checks continue to beef up in Corporate America, as more companies jack up their distribution rates.

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

Let's start with Harris (NYSE: HRS). The communication and information technology contractor is going through with a 14% boost to its quarterly disbursements. Investors will now be receiving $0.25 a share every three months. These are lean times, but Harris is feeling good about opening its billfold wider after a record year of orders.

Can you raise my dividend now? Good! Verizon (NYSE: VZ) improved its quarterly payouts by 3% to $0.4875 a share. It's the fourth consecutive year of rate hikes at Verizon, pushing its yield up to a chunky 6.5%. It's chunkier than rival carrier AT&T's (NYSE: T) 6.1% rate, and way better than Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), which hasn't declared a dividend since 2007.

HCC (NYSE: HCC) knows that they like 'em big in Texas. The Texan specialty insurer has jacked up its distributions in each of the past 14 years. Its new quarterly rate of $0.145 a share is a 7% improvement.

Finally, we have Alliance Financial (Nasdaq: ALNC) banking on richer shareowners. The parent company of Alliance Bank is increasing its quarterly dividend from $0.28 a share to $0.30 a share.

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 trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing that will get hiked will be your interest.

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