Adsense with only $2.69 with 19 clicks?

Ok intro- im a newbie. Lets do some maths here. I have a site, with 6k unique visitors after like 20-30 posts, each article with SEO in mind.

Writing 1 article = 1 hour. With well thought SEO words and the blah
Keyword research for niche with low competition = 30 mins
all the linking to forums, article submission for back links for each article = 30min - 1 hour. I have to re word my orginal post so as to prevent penalty for duplication content, strategize myself to sound helpful as opposed to being prick to jaming backlinks.

total for 1 article submission = more than 2 hours, for one article that slowly climb the ranks, while i try to pile adsense ads and pray that they click them. And in a months time, after several articles, planning ads placement, I get 6k views, 19 clicks and $2.69.

I mean, I could flip a burger for 1 hour and get 5 USD in my home country. Gd times I get a free coke and they pay me right away, not till I earned $100 bucks in flipping burgers.

So whats up guys, is adsense not a money making machine, or i did something wrong here, any guidance is appreciated.

That may be because your traffic is from more foreign countries. Clicks from the USA will give you more money.