I have had much the same experience (at 47) as you F-I-L has had at 55. I have applied for stuff that pays less than what I made in my first job out of grad school in 1980. But employers will not even give me the time of day for those jobs: They assume (rightly) that I'll leave the moment something else (better) comes through. So the idea of getting a "hamburger flipper" job with graduate degrees and decades of senior management experience is just some kind of urban legend: You can't get hired for those jobs with all those qualifications.
So you have to keep trying and working to find something appropriate...and you get one interview per month (if you're lucky). Those aren't good odds.
I still have 2 and a half months of UI left -- then who knows? I could start eating away the pensions that I've saved up over the years. I suppose after being unemployed long enough, my qualifications will deteriorate to where someone will hire me to be a "delivery boy."
"So the idea of getting a "hamburger flipper" job with graduate degrees and decades of senior management experience is just some kind of urban legend: You can't get hired for those jobs with all those qualifications."
Simple, just don't put those qualifications on your resume. Problem solved.