I see the earned income requirement there, and the instructions seem clear, as well.  This taxpayer pulled up an IRS.gov page when she stopped in to show me that she could qualify for the refundable CTC with no income ==> turns out, she may have put in 2022 & her search engine assumed the 2022 filing season (which were 2021 returns) when she would have been right.  Not this filing season, it seems.