Thanks for the suggestion. My income is W-2 and my wife's is 1099-NEC from self-employed work as an independent contractor. I checked, and the income is indeed divided under the appropriate names. Plus, everything I read seems to indicate that 1099-NEC still counts as earned income. For example: "Earned income includes wages, salaries, tips, other taxable employee compensation, and net earnings from self-employment." (https://www.irs.gov/publications/p503#en_US_2023_publink1000203280)
I do have some good news, though. I figured out how to force TurboTax Desktop to allow me to claim the credit. I filled it out with myself as a student (as I indicated above). Then, I was able to switch to Forms mode and delete any reference to me being a student. I double-checked everything and it looks like all of the numbers are correct after the change.
Thank you again for your help. This workaround at least fixes the issue for me.
