SCHD Dividend Calculator

What SCHD actually is

SCHD tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index — a rules-based screen that starts from U.S. companies with at least ten consecutive years of dividend payments, then ranks the survivors on four fundamentals: cash-flow-to-total-debt, return on equity, dividend yield, and five-year dividend growth. The 100 that score highest are weighted and rebalanced once a year. That screen is why SCHD reads less like a yield-chasing fund and more like a quality filter that happens to pay a dividend: the same rules that push the yield toward ~3.3% also lean the holdings toward established, cash-generative businesses rather than the highest-yielding names on the board.

Who tends to reach for it

SCHD is a recurring name in r/dividends discussions for a specific reason — it sits between a low-yield broad-market fund like VOO and a high-distribution covered-call fund like JEPI. It pays more current income than a total-market index but keeps a growing per-share dividend, which the covered-call income funds give up. That makes it a common core holding for someone with a long horizon who wants the payout to compound rather than someone who needs to spend the distribution today. If your goal is the largest possible check this year, a higher-yield vehicle does that; if your goal is a payout that grows on its own over a decade or two, SCHD's trailing ~9.2% dividend-per-share growth is the number doing the work in the projection above. Neither is inherently correct — they answer different questions, which is why this cluster gives each fund its own calculator.

How DRIP compounds here

With dividends reinvested, each distribution buys more shares, and those shares pay their own dividends next period — the reinvestment loop the toggle above turns on and off. The metric that captures it is yield-on-cost: dividends received in a year divided by what you originally put in. SCHD's starting yield is roughly 3.3%, but because the per-share dividend has grown faster than the share price historically, yield-on-cost drifts upward over a long hold even though the market yield stays near its starting level. Turn DRIP off and you keep the cash instead; the share count stops compounding and the income line flattens sooner. The chart shows both effects as a band, not a line, because the rate of that growth is uncertain.

The tax detail worth knowing

SCHD's distributions are generally qualified dividends, which are taxed at long-term capital-gains rates in a taxable brokerage account — but they are still taxed in the year they are paid, even when you reinvest them. That is the quiet drag DRIP does not remove: in a taxable account you owe tax on distributions you never actually spent. Held inside a Roth or traditional IRA, the reinvestment compounds without that annual bill. This calculator projects gross dividends and does not subtract dividend tax, so a taxable-account result is an upper bound on what you keep. For how qualified versus ordinary treatment changes the number, see the guide linked below.