There so much competition i see 30 yo being forced to restart a new career being rejected for younger applicants.
But most of the time it s not about what you know but who you know.
That happens in jobs where you don't need much knowledge/experience. Try to find young applicants who can engineer/write complicated code/manage big company/etc well... In some of the fields it is becoming so complex, that you need 10 years of plain experience/trial-error just to become a good participant. You are speaking about lower class jobs, probably because you work one (nothing wrong with that). You can know whoever you want, if you can't get the job done - you won't last long, simple as that.
To add: I've been making money out of the stuff most ppl doesn't even imagine existing (like traffic selling at a big scale). I can sit on my butt all day long and I will still earn at least 400-500bucks a month. Plenty of money out there, you just have to know how to take it.