Often, however, a non-negligible share of the workforce earns less. It is not because the minimum wages may have had negligible effects on employment that they cannot potentially harm employment levels. It is rather that, in the past, minimum wage levels were set bearing in mind the risks they implied (Freeman, 2009). The Colombian case, where the minimum wage was raised in the midst of the deep recession of the late 1990s, when the unemployment rate more than doubled to a historical high of 20%, tells a cautionary tale (Kucera and Xenogiani, 2009).