The Social Security Administration (SSA) defines police officer positions as those that are charged primarily with one or more of the following characteristic functions:

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  Maintaining order;

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  Preventing and detecting crimes; and

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  Enforcing laws.

SSA will determine if a position constitutes a police officer position for purposes of coverage under a State's Section 218 Agreement. In evaluating whether a position is a police officer position, SSA looks at how State statutes or court decisions characterize the position. If SSA determines that State statutes and court decisions clearly and completely resolve its determination, then SSA will base its determination on those sources. If the issue is not clearly and completely resolved, SSA will consider the following additional factors, in order of importance:

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  The degree to which any one or more of the three main characteristic functions constitute the primary duties of the position, as described in the position description;

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  How many of the three main characteristic functions identified above are performed in the position as described in the position description;

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  Any guidance from the State’s attorney general about how the State views the position; and

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  Whether the position exists within a regularly organized police department.

In order to facilitate SSA’s determination in particular cases, the State Administrator should provide SSA, as soon as practicable following SSA’s request, the position descriptions for all positions in question as well as any other relevant information or evidence known to the State Administrator. The State may choose to submit to SSA an interpretation by the State’s attorney general on the whether a position is a police officer position. SSA will give due weight to a State attorney general’s determination as part of its overall analysis, but is not bound by that determination. Where the State attorney general is unable or unwilling to provide SSA with a determination, SSA will proceed to make its own determination without the attorney general’s input.

Generally, SSA will not find a position to be a police officer position solely because the services performed are connected with police officers or police departments.

If SSA determines that a position does not engage in at least one of the characteristic functions identified above, SSA will generally conclude that the position is not a police officer position, regardless of the position’s characterization in State statutes or court decisions.

Positions including game wardens, foresters, forest patrollers, crime investigator supervisors, police department stenographers, sheriffs, and highway patrollers may or may not qualify as police officer positions, depending on the particular facts and circumstances involved.

Police officers are not considered emergency workers under the Social Security and Medicare exception for emergency workers defined in Section 210(a)(7)(F)(iii) of the Social Security Act (Act). The emergency worker exclusion applies only to services of an employee that was hired because of an unforeseen emergency to do work in connection with that emergency on a temporary basis (e.g., individual hired to provide emergency assistance in disasters, such as a forest fire, volcano eruption, severe ice storm, earthquake, and flood).

Police officers who are on call and work regularly but on an intermittent basis only do not qualify for the emergency exclusion under Section 218(c)(6) of the Act, even if their work involves situations that may be considered emergencies. This exclusion applies only to services of an employee who was hired because of an unforeseen emergency to do work in connection with that emergency on a temporary basis.