I have a 42 year old client that contributed $3,150 into her Roth IRA as 2021 Roth contributions. This $3,150 was contributed over several monthly contributions in early 2021. She stopped contributions mid 2021 over fears 2021 income would be too high to directly contribute to a Roth IRA. She and her husband have prepared their 2021 tax return and income is too high to directly contribute to a Roth IRA. The plan is for her to recharacterize these 2021 Roth contributions into a traditional IRA as 2021 traditional IRA contributions. She will then contribute additional funds to get 2021 Traditional IRA contributions to $6,000 (her max). She doesn’t have any IRA assets so as a secondary step she will do the backdoor Roth so that ultimately she gets $6k into her Roth.

Once the $3,150 (and associated earnings) are recharacterized from her Roth IRA into her Traditional IRA as 2021 IRA contributions, can she contribute another $2,850 as 2021 IRA contributions? This will be the $6k max.

Or do the earnings on the $3,150 count toward her $6,000 contribution limit? So if the $3,150 earned $350 then she could only contribute another $2,500 into her Traditional IRA as 2021 contributions?