Is the world on hiring freeze?

I'm 19 and although I'm very young I have taken a few college courses. I have taken beg-advanced word processing and document processing, medical document processing, medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, and business English. I am able to type 85 wpm+ and have previous clerical and customer service experience, I will send a resume, have an interview, but, I'll call later and they say the position is filled or they still haven't decided. Every time I interview for a low-paying job though, I have got the job. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting my time because I know a lot of high school dropouts (my age) that have better paying jobs than I do. My mother passed away and I have been forced to live on my own since 18 since there are no close family members. Is it because of my age? I always dress nice at interviews, ask questions, do company research beforehand, and always carry pleasant conversations. Serious answers and advice is greatly appreciated & thank you in advance! :)

Also, if you can suggest any positions that you think would be best for me, feel free to comment on this as well. I'd like as many opinions as I can get. :)

Its all about supply and demand and in your field there is a huge supply of secretarys and they all apply for the high paying jobs first. So someone thats been doing clerical work for 5 years is of course going to get the job before you.

Unfortunatly you are right. Clerical work is a dead end job, even if you do get one of the higher paying jobs. Maybe, if you can handle it, go to college for a few more years and do something like nursing. You can become an RN in 2 years and i know where I am at in CA the nurses at one hospital start at 34 Dollars per hour. I met a nurse that had been working at that hospital for 7 years and he was making 50$ per hour. They give you all the overtime you want too so you could really pull in some big bucks if you could manage to work your butt off for two years....anyway...thats just a thought.