if you're not in school, get yourself in at ground level of a warehouse/distribution center/manufacturing plant (I say all 3 because experience with one always carries over to another)...if you show that you work hard, pay attention to detail, never late or absent, show them you have potential, etc., you'll go from $7 an hour to somewhere in the teens within 2 years...I gaurantee this...
when I was 19, I started at the bottom floor in a print shop...within a year I went from 7 to 11 an hour...within 2 years I was a supervisor making 36,000 a year (not bad for 21 and no schooling at the time)...