The government-wide spending cuts known as the sequester remain unpopular for most Americans, with little difference in opinion across party lines, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released Friday.

Thirty-seven percent of Americans say they have felt a negative impact from the sequester, the poll shows.

The data indicates 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the sequester, which is roughly on par with the 57 percent who felt that way in April and the 53 percent in March.

Political affiliations seem to matter little, with 54 percent of Republicans disapproving of the cuts, compared to 59 percent of Democrats.

Federal employees protest the sequester outside the Department of Labor on March 20. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg).

Among demographics, negative opinions peak at 69 percent among liberals, followed closely by independent women at 67 percent. Sixty-four percent of those with a high school diploma or less disapproved.

Income appears to play a role in how people feel about the matter. Support for the cuts peaks at 52 percent among people with incomes of $100,000 or more, but falls to 37 percent of those making $50 to $100 thousand and to 29 percent among those with the lowest incomes.

The poll shows President Obama with a slight edge over Republicans in Congress, 43 to 38 percent, when it comes to trust in handling the deficit.

The poll was conducted May 16 to 19 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The results from the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or
minus 3.5 percentage points.

Below are a few graphs to help illustrate the data. For fmore information, view the full results.

Contributions to this report came from Capital Insight, the independent polling group of Washington Post Media. Pollsters included Jon Cohen, Peyton M. Craighill, Scott Clement and Kimberly Hines.

Lois Lerner, former director of the IRS's exempt organizations office, listens during a congressional hearing on May 22. (Pete Marovich/Bloomberg)

The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday announced that it had replaced Lois Lerner, a top official who oversaw the agency's "determinations" division during the scandal that involved targeting of conservative groups.

Ken Corbin, who was deputy director of a larger unit of the IRS, will be taking Lerner's place, according to internal communications.

Lerner has been placed on administrative leave, according to various media reports, including a blog from the Washington Post.

IRS acting commissioner Danny Werfel, who replaced ousted predecessor Steven Miller, released the following statement to agency staff:

Ken Corbin has been selected to be the acting Director, Exempt Organizations, Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division.

Ken is a proven leader during challenging times. He has strong management experience inside the IRS handling a wide range of processing issues and compliance topics as well as taxpayer service areas. Combined with his track record of leading large work groups, these skills make him an ideal choice to help lead the Exempt Organizations area through this difficult period.

In this new role, Ken will lead an organization of 900 Exempt Organization employees responsible for a range of compliance activities, including examining the operational and financial activities of exempt organizations, processing applications for tax exemption, providing direction through private letter rulings and technical guidance and providing customer education and outreach to the exempt community.

Ken is currently the Deputy Director, Submission Processing, Wage and Investment (W&I) Division, where he leads over 17,000 employees sharing the day-to-day responsibility of processing 172 million individual and business tax returns through both electronic and paper means. He provides oversight to an organization comprised of a headquarters staff responsible for developing program policies and procedures, five W&I processing centers and seven commercially-operated lockbox banks. Prior to this recent position, Ken held the position of Field Director, Austin Submission Processing Center, where he led a staff of approximately 4,000 seasonal and permanent employees in Austin, Texas, responsible for processing 5 million electronic returns and more than 10 million individual paper returns.

Ken began his career in government service at the Atlanta Service Center in the Submission Processing Document Retention Branch in 1986. During his career, Ken has acquired an extensive background in campus operations from 10 years in Submission Processing, three in Accounts Management, six in Compliance Services and three in Taxpayer Advocate Services.

Please join me in welcoming Ken to his new role and supporting him during this important assignment.

Federal employees affected by the Oklahoma tornado are eligible for special considerations in their health insurance and other benefit programs, the Office of Personnel Management said Thursday.

In a message to agencies, OPM said it has contacted Federal Employees Health Benefits Program carriers "to ask them to demonstrate maximum flexibility" in providing benefits, such as relaxing requirements regarding how fast a plan must be notified of an emergency admission or treatment at an out-of-network hospital or other medical center.

A rescue worker checks the rubble in a residential area in Moore, Oklahoma May 21. (Reuters)

OPM also expects plans to make sure that enrollees get additional supplies of medicine if necessary.

Enrollees in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program living in the affected areas who miss premium payments will not have their coverage canceled, but instead their accounts will be brought up to date later, OPM said.

Further, the requirement for a death certificate will be waived for claims under the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program; only a statement from the agency that the employee or covered family member was in the affected area is needed.

OPM put in place similar policies for federal workers affected by Hurricane Sandy last fall.

(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Obama will name Katherine Archuleta as his choice to head the Office of Personnel Management, White House officials said Thursday.

Archuleta previously worked as the Obama campaign's national political director. She also served as chief of staff for former Labor secretary Hilda Solis and worked as a staffer for former Denver Mayor Federico Pena, according to In the Loop.

Archuleta will become the second Hispanic nominee for a political appointment within the administration during Obama's second term. The president has also tapped U.S. assistant attorney general Thomas Perez to become labor secretary.

Both of Obama's first-term Hispanic appointees, Solis and former Interior secretary Ken Salazar, have left their positions.

Republicans have fiercely resisted Perez's nomination, casting doubt on his fate as a potential Cabinet member. Last week, the nominee cleared a minor confirmation hurdle as a Senate committee cleared him -- in a strictly party line vote -- for consideration by the full Senate.

For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed, friend his Facebook page or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.

A Senate committee on Wednesday approved President Obama's five nominees for the National Labor Relations Board, splitting along party lines but moving the confirmation process to the full Senate.

The status of the board has been in limbo since a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in January that the president exceeded his constitutional authority by forgoing the usual confirmation process and appointing three board members while Senate lawmakers were on break in January 2012.

Republicans around that time were blocking confirmation of Obama's political nominees. The president ultimately made "recess appointments," selecting three members for the board while the Senate was on break.

(Charles Dharapak/AP)

The Constitution allows recess appointments but does not specify how many days the Senate must be on break before that can happen.

Republicans argue that no president has taken such action during a break of less than 10 days, but they held pro forma sessions -- meaning lawmakers were gone but technically not on recess -- in early 2012 to prevent any recess appointments by that standard.

Democrats used that same tactic to block confirmation of certain political appointments of President George W. Bush.

The board has not had five confirmed members since 2003, but a quorum of just three members is required for the panel to issue decisions in labor disputes.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the Senate committee, opposed two of Obama's nominees Wednesday because they were among the president's 2012 recess appointees.

"This is a matter of principle," Alexander said. "By recess-appointing NLRB members at a time when the Senate was actually in session, the president has shown a troubling disrespect for the Constitution."

Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the committee, supported Obama's nominations.

"I hope that as we move to the floor we can put politics aside and do our duty to consider all of these nominees fairly on their own merits," Harkin said. "This is an exceptionally well-qualified package of nominees, and they all deserve to be swiftly confirmed."

The president's NLRB nominees are Harry Johnson and Phil Miscimarra, along with two of his previous recess appointees, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, as well as current board chairman Mark Gaston Pearce, whose Senate-confirmed term expires in August.

Obama's third recess appointee, Terence Flynn, resigned from the board last year amid allegations of ethics violations.

The NLRB has said it will petition the Supreme Court to review the appeals court's ruling. All the board's decisions since the president made his controversial recess appointments will hinge on whether the justices accept the case.

If the Supreme Court rejects the case, then the lower court's decision would stand, effectively nullifying hundreds of NLRB decisions since Obama made his recess appointments.

The NLRB has has ruled on hundreds of labor disputes since Obama made his appointments in 2012, and the board has moved forward with issuing decisions despite the appeals court decision in January.

In April, the Republican-controlled House approved a bill to prohibit the NLRB from taking any actions that require a panel quorum until the Supreme Court issues a decision on the constitutionality of the recess appointments or until all members of the board are confirmed by the Senate.

For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed, friend his Facebook page or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.