I can't overstate how amazing the dividend growth investing strategy is. A major reason for this is right in the name of the strategy. Dividend growth. That's right. I'm talking about not just dividends but growing dividends. See, passive income is fantastic. But it's not so fantastic if it isn't growing. If it's not growing, it'll get eaten alive by inflation over time. Well, dividend growth investing takes care of this. It has built-in inflation protection through dividend growth. That's the dividend increases high-quality businesses are reliably announcing year after year. These dividend increases are like "pay raises" to shareholders.

Today, I want to tell you about three high-quality dividend stocks that just announced dividend increases.

The first dividend increase you should know about came from Procter & Gamble (PG).

Procter & Gamble just handed their shareholders a 10% "pay raise" with their recent dividend increase.

This marks the 65th consecutive year of dividend increases for the consumer products company.

Procter & Gamble is a classic dividend growth stock offering a great combination of quality, yield, and growth on the back of a business selling necessary everyday products like toothpaste and soap.

The second stock I want to tell you about is Costco Wholesale (COST).

Costco just announced a 12.9% dividend increase. That kind of dividend growth is what makes Costco shareholders happy. After all, it's not a big income producer. The stock only yields 0.9%.

This is a long-term compounder that'll just exponentially grow your wealth and passive income. The stock has compounded at an annual rate of 20% over the last 20 years, which is incredible.

As long as that track record is, and as mature as the business might seem, they're really just getting started in many ways. With a P/E ratio coming up on 40, it's not a cheap stock by any means. But if you get the opportunity to snag a small discount on this discount retailer, take it.

The third dividend increase I want to bring to your attention came courtesy of Southern Co. (SO).

Southern just gave their shareholders a nice 3.1% dividend increase.

Southern is nothing if not consistent. That's right in line with their 10-year dividend growth rate of 3.5%. And with the stock yielding almost 4%, that's a pretty solid growth rate.

This is the 21st consecutive year in which the utility company has increased its dividend.

If you want to make sure your passive income is as reliable as your bills are, a high-quality dividend growth utility stock should absolutely be in your portfolio.

Like the rest of these stocks and the market as a whole, the stock doesn't look cheap. The P/E ratio of 22 is elevated, but it's also not totally unreasonable. If there's any kind of pullback in the stock, it's very much worth considering as a long-term investment.

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