This is coming from someone who has been in IT for 20 years, very successfully, and has never taken any computer courses...
Get a freaking skill!!! The OP admits that the subject of the PhD is not applicable to really anything in the world. You might as well have spent 6 years of your life under a rock, because you are now the utmost expert at that tiny, inapplicable area.
Want cash and job security up the wahoo? Go pick up a CCNA book, and $500 of used Cisco gear on eBay. Get CCNA and a network admin job at a small, growing company who can't afford to pay you more than $50,000. Proceed to get your CCNP. Invest another $10,000 and two years and get CCIE. Go to "whatever the hell company you want" and make $120k+ and never worry about unemployment again.
+1. The key to long term success is being hardnosed about failures/setbacks/sub-optimal jobs, having long term focus, and putting yourself in a position where you can demonstrate your value and skills. But most of all, it is being pragmatic in the short term while being optimistic in the long term.
Having long term focus means picturing yourself on what you would consider a fulfilling job, and how exactly you see yourself and your job. Say, in 10 years. By focus, I mean take up a low paying job if necessary, as long as it is aligned to your long term goals. Good Example: Joining a company with a core focus on quality programming, but as a junior developer instead of a senior developer or lead or whatever else you might be expecting.
Bad Example: Joining the IT department (cost center) of say, a big manufacturing company. Might pay well in the short term, but will eventually be a dead-end for you.
Being hard-nosed means continue trying. Obviously, fine tuning or tweaking your strategy and where/how you are applying. By far, the easiest way to get into a company is through referrals. So can any of your buddies help you out? They get to make decent money through referral bonuses too. Also, is your location preference dragging you down? Again, in a long enough time-frame, say, 15 years from now, you will barely remember the extra 3 months (or 6 months or whatever) you put in during your initial struggling phase. So why bother getting demoralized by it now?
Lastly, don't get desperate to find a job. Your job and your company is as good as your boss. Use the interview process to figure out how much you like your future boss. If you boss isn't even interviewing you (rare, but happens), you probably don't want to work in that company to begin with.
And please remember - an extra 3-6 months of job hunting is way way better than making a mistake. Typically, from my experience, people take 2-3 years on average to fix a mistake (bad job, bad boss, bad company, bad growth opportunities).