No. If anything, it's unusually dangerous to hold income stocks in inflationary times.
To see this, let's consider total returns on the FTSE 350 high yield index relative to the low yield index as our measure of income stocks. Since 1986 this ratio has actually been negatively correlated with inflation, meaning that - more often than not - higher-yielding shares have underperformed as inflation has risen. For example, high yielders underperformed low yielders between 2005 and 2008 as inflation rose. And the best times for high yielders came in the early 90s and early 00s, when the tech bubble burst - periods of falling inflation.
There are two, competing, explanations for this.
One is that investors can, to a small extent, see inflation coming. Insofar as they can, they might buy income stocks as protection against inflation. But this would cause them to rise in anticipation of higher inflation and not to do well while inflation rises.
Alternatively, inflation is not good for high yielders simply because it can be bad for growth and weaker growth hurts income shares more than it hurts growth stocks whose cashflows (hopefully) come in the more distant future. It's no accident that income stocks underperformed in the recessions of the early 90s and 2008-09.
Admittedly, one channel through which inflation hurts growth might not operate now - the tendency for inflation to lead to rising interest rates. But two other channels might matter. One is that inflation squeezes some people's incomes, thus depressing their spending. The other is that inflation is often associated with increased uncertainty, which also makes people disinclined to spend; traditionally, there has been a positive correlation between inflation and households' savings ratio.
Whatever the reason, though, the fact is the same. You cannot rely upon income stocks to protect you against rising inflation.
