In periods of rising inflation and slowing economic growth, one constant investors can count on is the reliability of dividend stocks to see them through.

The asset managers at Hartford Funds looked at the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 going all the way back to 1930, and they found that dividends contributed 40% to the total return of the index over that 91-year period.

In addition to wars and recessions, the time period included the 2000s -- the so-called "lost decade," when the bursting of the dot-com bubble, 9/11, and the housing market crash resulted in the S&P 500 generating a negative return. Dividend stocks in the S&P 500, however, returned a positive 1.8%.

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Source Fool.com