If you are married filing jointly, and the program is telling you you don’t qualify because only one spouse has earned income, then two possibilities are suggested.
1. you accidentally entered both W-2s under the name of one spouse. Go back to the W to screen, look at the list of W-2s and see which spouse is assigned. You may need to delete one and start over.
2. Certain types of wages that are exempt from Social Security tax (box 3 and 4 on the W-2) do not count as earned income. If box 3 and 4 are blank, that will not show up as earned income.
