Stocks that pay dividendscan make a great addition to your portfolio. What they can't do, however, is give you a boost in income without adding any risk to your investments.

Feeling the income crunch
Unfortunately, an income boost is exactly what many investors are looking for right now. Across the financial markets, investors are seeing payouts on their investments drop dramatically. CD rateshave fallen to the point at which it's difficult to earn more than 3% to 3.5% on your money, even if you're willing to tie it up for five years or more.

In response, some investors have moved their safe moneyto riskier investments in order to obtain higher yields. Yet even longer-term bond funds, which expose you to quite a bit of interest-rate risk, aren't paying huge yields right now. One long-term Treasury fund yields just 3.75% despite owning bonds with an average maturity of almost 20 years. Even the Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund (VWEHX), which owns bonds of issuers like Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK), Mosaic (NYSE: MOS), and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), has seen its yield fall from double digits to less than 8% in recent months.

Why dividend stocks are attractive
Given the dearth of income most people are seeing from their portfolios, it's easy to understand why dividend-paying stocks are so tempting. Not only are their yields extremely attractivecompared with other income-producing investments, but also the capital appreciation that many of those stocks have seen so far this year blows bonds and other investments out of the water. Just look at how well these dividend stocks have done:

Stock

Current Yield

2009 YTD Return

Altria Group (NYSE: MO)

7.5%

20.3%

Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE)

5.1%

26.6%

PPG Industries

3.5%

41.6%

DuPont (NYSE: DD)

5.0%

30.6%

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) Continued...