One in four women don't earn enough to benefit from the latest rise in the income tax personal allowance, according to a new study.

The TUC said the Government's policy of raising the amount someone can earn before they start to pay income tax was "expensive and poorly targeted".

The allowance goes up from £9,440 to £10,000 from this weekend, but it's not enough to help low-paid workers.

Raising personal allowances from £6,475 in 2010-11 to £10,000 has cost over £10 billion, but it has done nothing to help the four million lowest paid workers.

About one in six UK workers don't earn enough to benefit at all from the new rise and a further 333,000, mainly women, will only partially benefit, the research found.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Raising the personal allowance is one of the Government's most expensive policies, and most of its £10 billion cost is benefiting wealthy families, while those on the lowest incomes lose out completely.

"From this Sunday, a worker on £99,000 will get a £195 tax cut, while four million of the UK's lowest paid workers will get nothing. It is odd to see politicians fighting to take the credit for a policy that does so little to help hard-working families, and one which is also particularly bad at helping women.

"If the Government really wants to help hard-working families on low to middle incomes, it should abandon further rises in the personal allowance and focus instead on reversing damaging cuts to tax credits and universal credit that will leave millions of families worse off."