Let's take, for example, the English Literature Ph.D. working at a Starbucks in NYC (I know a few...). Why are they there? Because they want to be in NYC. They want to be near the "action", by which I mean the publishing houses and big universities. Great! That's one choice.
Another choice would be to travel out to the heartland of America which is in dire need of educated individuals. Get a teaching position and set-up writing workshops, for the locals to improve their resumes even. Take up an interest in back-woods folk lore. --or-- What about other countries? I hear that the Czech republic is in need of professors. Poland, too!
You see, the problem is that college coddles people (or at least, it did me), and graduate school coddles people. It's not that these individuals can't go out, be creative, try something daring, and maybe fall flat on their faces a couple of times. No, instead, working an 8 hour shift to go home, change, hang out at the bars the "writers" hang out at, and desperately try to sell that novel to yet another publishing house is, let's face it, comfortable. Sure, there's a chance at success, and some people willingly make this choice.
The bottom line is: if the years upon years of education you've received can't somehow be turned into good fortune in the absence of an obvious path forward, then what good were they in the first place?!?
I suppose that you could take the attitude that everyone who isn't picking up the proverbial shovel right now is just "whining", but I think you're missing the point: if we're in a position where our most educated and talented people are digging ditches and serving coffee, then everyone else is well and truly screwed. It isn't "whining" to observe that it's probably not in our best interest as a society to have lawyers and scientists stocking shelves and slinging espresso to make ends meet.
The point is, if the education you received doesn't improve your ability to provide for yourself, then something is either wrong with the education you received or the approach you're taking to the job market. Let's take the first of those possibilities.
I know individuals who are working on very focused topics; things like "The anharmonic instabilities of zwitterionic heterocycles and their effect on fragmentation patterns" (I just made that up, so don't bother Googling it). For these individuals, if they can't secure a post-doc studying Mass Spec, or an industry position in a Mass Spec lab, then they're screwed! But really, is that the job market's fault?If your education is not sufficiently broad, then your education is broken.
What about the second option? What if you get out of school and there are no opportunities? Well, who was supposed to provide those opportunities? The Government? Yeah well, guess what...the government doesn't care so much about science and research any more. Really, though, whose fault is that?
I have the same issue with biologists who moan and groan, "whine" even, about the Intelligent Design movement. They always want to view the poor understanding of evolution by the general public as being the fault of the general public, rather than a failure of scientists to adequately explain themselves and their work. If you can't get a job doing hard science, why not look for work as a science writer? Why not start up your own science outreach program? I'm sure there must be a market for "traveling science shows" (I used to be part of one in high school).
The only way such opportunities wouldn't exist is if the population is just so apathetic to knowledge and learning that they can't even be bother to listen when you break things down for them. If that's the case, go somewhere else! Highly educated Americans are going to have to start thinking of overseas as a viable job market. What America has is a glut of educated individuals, and small demand for them. Trust me, there are plenty of places in the world where those positions are reversed. Why not "Scientists without borders"? There's already Engineers without borders...
False dichotomy. There are plenty of other options, including (but not limited to) industry trends, bad/slow job markets and people who make weird stereotypes about the work ethic of graduate students.
A lot of smart, hard-working people have just been screwed by circumstances that are beyond their control. Not everyone with a graduate degree knows how to code. Moreover, just because someone doesn't know how to code doesn't mean that they studied basket-weaving, and are therefore useless. If you worked your butt off getting a PhD in the sciences, only to graduate this year -- well, that's just plain bad luck.
Finally, trust me: if this downturn goes on long enough, even the programmers will feel the pain. So if I were you, I'd start hunting for a big hunk of wood, and start knocking as hard as you can.