Even during this island’s very palmiest days in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were people living on the outskirts of hope, those who had been left behind as remarkable economic growth brought unparalleled opportunity for most Bermudians.

In many instances this relative poverty was symptomatic of other, more deeply entrenched problems. The causes often lay in our economic and social structures as well as in our public institutions, perhaps primarily in our failure to ensure that all of our fellow Bermudians were afforded a fair chance to develop their capabilities because of a lack of quality public schooling and job training.

This situation was, of course, further aggravated by a collective lack of political will to address a longstanding problem.

Bermudian governments of all stripes tend to be more noted for responding to crises after they have happened rather than anticipating them.

Sometimes unforeseen events do indeed overtake the government of the day; sometimes there’s nothing to be done but to react after the fact rather than act ahead of time.

However, that has never been the case when it comes to public education.

For decades it has been obvious that Bermuda’s senior school system provides students with neither the skills nor the knowledge to successfully negotiate their way through what has become an increasingly competitive job market, particularly in the years since the financial services sector and its satellites supplanted tourism as the chief drivers of the economy.

And for decades successive governments — United Bermuda Party, Progressive Labour Party and One Bermuda Alliance — simply continued to throw more money at a system that had clearly failed us while paying lip service to the concept of comprehensive educational reform and forlornly hoping for better results.

None of them took the necessary and long-overdue steps to overhaul and retool what must be among the most well-financed but least efficient public education systems in the world.

None of them acknowledged education is the most important investment a country can make in its future.

Rather, all of these administrations repeatedly allowed a combination of lethargy and political expediency to trump their obligations to our young people.

And, invariably and unavoidably, this combination of political inertia and the practising politician’s deep-seated fear of antagonising powerful voting blocs in the form of teachers and school administrators set the stage for what happened next.

As Bermuda’s economy rapidly moved to new and higher levels in the years leading up to 2008, it increasingly bypassed greater numbers of those with only minimal educational qualifications or skills. This stark and sobering fact could be seen in any number of statistics, which reflect that poverty is directly linked to educational attainment.

Then came the devastating one-two punch of systematic fiscal mismanagement at home and a global Great Recession, causing the Bermuda economy to all but implode.

A downturn of unprecedented length and severity, there is no doubt that Bermuda’s rapid economic contraction was felt throughout all strata of the community — even by those who had been largely cushioned from previous slumps by either status or wealth.

But there can also be no doubt that this precipitous decline hit already-disadvantaged people particularly hard and, of course, added to the numbers of Bermuda’s chronically distressed.

Stable and well-paying jobs were now even harder to come by. And, as a consequence, poverty was on the rise for close to a decade — technically, Bermuda’s period of protracted economic stagnation did not actually come to an end until 2015.

All of which brings us to Bermuda’s current unhappy impasse.

This week Zane DeSilva, the Minister of Social Development and Sport, said Bermuda’s $1 million-a-week financial assistance system is breeding a “culture of entitlement” among some of the almost 3,000 people who depend on it.

“It’s well recognised that the current expenditure of more than $50 million per year the Government spends on financial assistance is unsustainable and can’t continue,” he warned.

The minister accepted the programme is a “lifeline” for those who rely on it, but added “unfortunately, over time there has developed an over-reliance ... among too many of those who receive financial assistance”.

Bermuda politicians are far from unique when it comes to concerns that welfare, if not carefully limited, will reduce recipients to a state of permanent dependency.

However, to regard the continuing consequences of the economic contraction in purely fiscal terms, one carrying a $50 million annual bill, is to underestimate its transformative impact on Bermudian society. And it’s to entirely ignore that the most stubborn pockets of the unemployed and underemployed include disproportionately large numbers of recent school-leavers.

It is self-evident that those who feel undervalued in a failing school system and then find themselves marginalised in the job market are at heightened risk of rejecting the society they believe has already rejected them. As one Royal Gazette columnist wrote even before the economic decline began in earnest: “They drop out ... or get through school with minimal academic effort, because they do not believe that academic exertion will make much difference in their lives.

“They become adolescent parents because they see no good reason for postponing, or even being particularly careful with, sexual activity.

“They sell drugs because the money is attractive and the risk of a police record seems small when measured against their chances of success in the legitimate world.”

This depressing scenario is, of course, even more pronounced now than it was before the island’s protracted economic crisis.

That is why it is more urgent than ever to help those who are in school at present to develop the skills they will need to lead fulfilling lives and to use their full potential for themselves, their families and Bermuda.

It is equally incumbent upon DeSilva’s government to examine practical ways in which we can upgrade the rudimentary apprenticeship and job-training schemes that Bermuda offers young school-leavers.

Frankly, too many of our young people are looking to the future not with hope but with pessimism. They believe they do not count, that their lives do not matter.

And such a mounting sense of social estrangement and disillusionment will ultimately prove to be just as unsustainable for this community as the $50 million it now costs us yearly to fund Bermuda’s social safety nets.