This study by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Bohan Zawadzki (1935) examines the psychological consequences of unemployment through autobiographical accounts submitted by unemployed individuals in Poland during the early 1930s. Drawing on 57 selected autobiographies from a larger corpus of 774, the authors explore the representativeness, reliability, and interpretive value of this material. The analysis focuses on three central domains: material deprivation and survival strategies, patterns of time use among the unemployed, and the emotional and attitudinal consequences of prolonged joblessness. The accounts reveal pervasive poverty, with individuals relying on irregular work, family support, or socially stigmatized means such as begging or petty theft. Time use is characterized less by idleness than by the persistent but often fruitless search for work, with limited engagement in leisure or cultural activities. Emotional impacts include resignation, estrangement, and feelings of helplessness, which foster disillusionment but rarely translate into collective revolutionary action. Instead, unemployment appears to intensify social isolation and diminish solidarity among workers. The study highlights how unemployment produces both material hardship and psychological consequences—circumscribed aspirations, withdrawal from social life, and ambivalent or hostile attitudes toward the state and community—that undermine individual well-being and collective agency.