What are these magical ways to hedge against inflation that wealthy have access to and middle class don't? By definition, inflation equates to higher salaries for the middle class.
Commodities, stocks, options, derivatives, and real estate are the most common. But I think they aren't limited to the wealthy per say. The wealthy just know much more about them and have higher percentages of their net worth in these types of things.
You can make money if the market goes up, you can make money if the market goes down, and you can make money if the market doesn't go anywhere.
It's definitely correlated but not 1 to 1. Wealthy people will use leverage though. Effectively their r-value is > 1.0. With middle class it might be around 0.6. The middle class still loses some as their salaries do go up but not as fast. Also, you usually need to quit and go to another job. The wealthy have more control and options.
You can make money if the market goes up, you can make money if the market goes down, and you can make money if the market doesn't go anywhere.