It’s quite possible: The Finnish government likes the concept, and it’s putting serious resources behind a national experiment. Starting in 2017, up to 100,000 Finns could get up to 1,000 euros a month, in lieu of other benefits. These lucky souls won’t have to work. They won’t have to prove they’re in poverty to get the money. For two years, they’ll get a fixed amount to do with what they will.

The idea of giving away public money, no strings attached, sounds crazy at first. But basic income has been attracting a lot of interest of late. Cities in the Netherlands and Canada are planning pilots. Politicians from Spain to Greece have announced their support. And, here in the U.S., the concept has drawn fans from across the political spectrum, and particularly in Silicon Valley. Basic income is seen as a way of putting a floor under the poorest, and minimizing inefficiencies in current welfare systems.

Finland’s government is interested for three reasons, according to Olli Kangas, who’s designing the research experiment.

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First, increasing numbers of Finns are working part-time, or on a temporary or freelance basis. These people don’t qualify for work-based benefits and, because they’re working, they don’t get unemployment benefits either. They’re caught in the middle. “One thing is to make our social security more responsive to those changes in the labor market,” says Kangas, who is also the research director at the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (KELA).

Second, the government wants to remove disincentives to working. Some unemployed Finns may not take jobs because they can get more money from the public purse. The hope with a basic income–which is paid irrespective of working status–is that people will want to make more money on top of their government allowance, rather than not working at all. “We want to avoid these incentive traps and make taking jobs more attractive than in the present system,” Kangas says.

And three, the government wants to reduce bureaucracy. “When you have income-tested benefits, like housing allowances, it takes time for our employees to check all the applications and see that the client’s income is this-and-that, and that their rent is this-and-that. Then, if a person’s income is changes, they have to repeat the process again. If the government can pay benefits without that kind of testing, it avoids bureaucratic hassle,” Kangas says.