By Stockpickr Staff
Updated at 3:52 p.m. EDT on April 28 from April 27, 2009

According to Jim Cramer, for stocks to head higher in this economic climate, they need to demonstrate growth and to pay a dividend. He saw strength in telecom companies such as Verizon (VZ) and certain banks, such as Wells Fargo (WFC).

Stockpickr has reviewed the dividend declarations made last week and has found that many were increases. We've compiled these dividend-raisers in a portfolio called Top Dividend-Increasers for the Week.

One of these stocks is Dow Jones Industrial Average component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), the health care conglomerate. It boosted its dividend by 6.5%, from 46 cents per share to 49 cents per share, payable June 9 to shareholders of record as of May 26. This gives the stock a fairly high yield of 3.8%. The company just got FDA approval for the arthritis drug Simponi, which is used to treat three forms of arthritis caused by immune system disorders. In terms of financials, its net income of $12.86 billion is more than double the dividend payout of $5.43 billion. Although it has $11.8 billion in debt, it has $12.8 billion in cash.

J&J was down 9 cents to $50.77 in late afternoon trading on Tuesday.

J&J appears in the portfolio of Pzena Investment Management, an $8.5 billion classic value investment manager that looks for deeply undervalued stocks and tries to benefit from stocks with overreactions to bad news. Other dividend stocks that it holds include Allstate (ALL) with a 3.6% dividend; Whirlpool (WHR), with a high 4.2% yield; and Home Depot (HD), with a 3.4% yield.

Kellogg Company (K), the cereal company, declared a regular quarterly dividend of 34 cents per share, payable on June 16 to shareowners of record at the close of business on June 1. Kellogg, which pays a yield of 3.5%, also announced plans for a 10% increase to 37.5 cents for its third fiscal quarter. On Monday of last week, Kellogg agreed to a settlement federal charges that it misleadingly advertised that eating Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal was "clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20%." Its dividend payout of $519 million is very well covered by its operating cash flow of $1.27 billion. However, it has $5.46 billion in total debt yet only $255 million in cash.

Kellogg was up 46 cents, or 1.2%, at $39.19 in late afternoon trading on Tuesday.

Kellogg is part of the portfolio of the Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund, a Morningstar-rated five-star fund managed by John C. Keogh. The fund ranks in the top 5% of all the funds in its category of conservative allocation funds. Other stocks in its portfolio include Chevron (CVX), with a 3.9% yield; FPL Group (FPL), with a 3.7% yield; and Kimberly-Clark (KMB), with a fairly high 4.9% yield.

For more ideas, check out the Top Dividend-Raisers portfolio at Stockpickr.

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