Like the UK economy, dividends paid by UK companies to shareholders are firmly in recovery mode. Last week, wealth platform AJ Bell forecast that dividend payments made by the 100 largest companies listed on the UK stock market would grow by 25 per cent this year to just short of £77billion. Although the bounce back is admittedly after the dividend decimation of last year caused by the economic fallout from the pandemic, it will be warmly welcomed by an army of private investors who depend on the income to bolster their household finances. If AJ Bell's financial crystal ball gazers are right, it should mean that the FTSE100 Index as a whole will deliver an annual income this year equivalent to around four per cent – a rate not available from most other financial assets, especially cash where savers are lucky if they can get an annual return of 0.01 per cent.