Walmart, one of the nation’s largest employers, is allowing its 1.4 million employees to take advances on their pay, according to the New York Times. The move comes in the holiday season, when many Americans struggle to keep up with bills and extra expenditures.

Instead of waiting for their biweekly paychecks, Walmart employees can get paid for time already worked using an app called Even. PayActiv, formed to provide an alternative to the often punishing expense of payday loans, is also facilitating some of the payments in a program calld InstaPay. The move is reminiscent of Green Dot’s GoBank accounts for Uber, which allows instant cash-outs for fares earned.

“You have earned this money,” said Safwan Shah, founder of PayActiv. “Who decides you should get paid every two weeks?”

Employees are not charged interest for early payout, but of course it reduces the size of their eventual paycheck. The app also helps with budgeting and future cashflow predictions.

Walmart executives told the Times that the cashflow issue affect all Americans, not just their workers, and cited a Federal Reserve study showing nearly half of Americans are unable to come up with $400 in case of an emergency.

Read more in the New York Times and Bloomberg.