I worked as a server and in coffee shops and yes, they most certainly are. Not all, but plenty. People generally fly to other countries much, much more than they used to. It's not just the wealthy any more, at all.

undefined> I can’t think of any other plausible explanation.

Housing is scarce and much more expensive for starters. Middle class people like using housing as an investment and vote to keep housing scarce because of that. It's not just the .1% that are voting for those policies.
China has a whole lot more income inequality too but much less poverty and a much larger middle class than before. The world as a whole does. Those two dynamics are not that related. Income inequality can grow whether the middle class is growing or not and can grow or decline whether there are more people in poverty or less.