Freelance translation and terrible pay

I'm a translator mostly because I think translation is a fun way to make a living. Only the 'making a living' part is still a bit problematic. Maybe I look for clients in the wrong places - I hope that's it - but from what I see it seems like utter cheapskatery is dominating the field. It's starting to feel like I'm getting lucky when people are willing to hire me for a fraction of local minimum wage.

(To give a number: my latest client paid $0.018 a word for one of the hardest texts I've done, to be finished on very short notice, and would hear nothing about a raise for a follow-up assignment. The main reason why I put up with this sort of thing is that I don't have anything to do. It's almost philanthropy.)

What's up with that? That's not, um, normal for translation, is it?

What could one do to actually make decent money from freelance translation?