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BIP

2 Recession-Resistant Dividend Stocks to Buy Now While They're Still Cheap

May 15, 2026 — 08:41 pm EDT

Written by

Micah Zimmerman for

The Motley Fool->

Key Points

- Waste Connections combines essential-service demand with strong pricing power, making it a steady dividend grower that can hold up even during economic slowdowns.

- Brookfield Infrastructure Partners offers recession resilience through inflation-linked contracts across utilities, transport, and a growing data infrastructure portfolio tied to AI demand.

- Both companies show that dependable income investments do not have to come from crowded staples or utility stocks.

- 10 stocks we like better than Brookfield Infrastructure Partners ›

The popular clickbait framing of "recession-resistant" stocks often points to consumer staples and utilities. That is not wrong, but it skips two of the more durable and boring cash-flow profiles in the public market -- solid waste collection and contracted global infrastructure.

Both businesses get paid on volumes, and price escalators that hold up across cycles, and both pay growing dividends. Neither is a household stock, which is partly why they are still trading at reasonable levels.

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Image source: Getty Images.

A garbage business with a software-like financial profile

Waste Connections (NYSE: WCN) is the third-largest solid waste company in North America, but its operating philosophy reads more like a focused services compounder than a commodity hauler. The business is built around secondary and exclusive markets -- smaller cities and contracted municipalities where pricing power is durable, and competition is limited.

In February 2026, the company announced its regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share, with the board's stated long-term objective of increasing the dividend annually. The yield is modest in absolute terms, but the relevant data point is the dividend growth rate over time, which has compounded at a double-digit pace for years.

What makes the business genuinely recession-resistant is the contract structure. Residential collection is essentially non-discretionary; commercial pricing often includes automatic escalators tied to the computer price index (CPI) or fuel indexes; and landfill capacity in many markets is approaching scarcity, which supports pricing. Recycling and energy services round out the mix without changing the underlying durability.

The risks worth flagging are mostly operational and acquisition-driven. Waste Connections grows by buying smaller haulers, and any large deal carries integration risk. Diesel and labor inflation also eat into margins faster than price escalators close the gap, which has been a periodic headwind. This stock is essentially recession-proof and pays a consistent dividend. It's a safe buy even in this shaky economy.

A globally diversified infrastructure cash-flow machine

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP) offers a very different shape of recession resistance. The partnership owns long-duration, mostly contracted or regulated assets across utilities, transport, midstream, and data infrastructure on four continents. Roughly 90% of cash flows are either inflation-indexed or subject to regulatory frameworks, meaning revenue tends to grow regardless of the economy's cycle.

In April 2026, Brookfield Infrastructure reported first-quarter results and declared a quarterly distribution of $0.455 per unit, representing a 6% increase over the prior year. For newer investors, the unit/corporation structure means the company offers both a partnership unit and a corporate share class -- same economics, different tax treatment, useful flexibility depending on the account type.

The more interesting forward driver here is data infrastructure. Brookfield has steadily built out exposure to data centers, fiber networks, and tower portfolios, which positions a defensive cash-flow business as a side-door way to invest in the AI build-out. Hyperscalers signing long-dated capacity contracts look very similar economically to a regulated utility -- fixed payments, long terms, inflation-linked escalators -- and that is exactly what Brookfield's contracts tend to look like to me.

Why valuation still works

Both names trade below their long-term valuation peaks while continuing to grow distributions. Waste Connections sets dividend reviews each October with an explicit growth bias, and Brookfie