The paper deals with the problem of households affected by unemployment and examines the hierarchy of consumer needs in such families. The research covers several groups of consumer needs, including food, clothing, household supplies, housing, vacations and cultural needs. Empirical material analyzed in the paper comes from surveys carried out in 2000 and 2006 among households in the central Polish province of Mazovia. The article analyzes the hierarchy of needs according to the level at which they are met. In the process, the author considers selected socio-demographic factors such as sex, age, education, number of family members, per capita income, place of residence, and how long the unemployed person has been out of work. The analysis shows that many of the surveyed households do not satisfy their basic consumer needs, while the hierarchy of these needs is relatively inflexible and impervious to change.