We love comparing ourselves to other cities throughout the country, so why not put the District’s august legislative body against 14 of its counterparts to see how it stacks up?

That’s exactly what the Philadelphia Research Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts did, and today, it’s rolling out the results in a report titled “City Councils in Philadelphia and Other Major Cities: Who Holds Office, How Long They Serve, and How Much It All Costs.” The report ranks our D.C. Council against legislative bodies in New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Detroit, Los Angeles, Boston, Phoenix and seven more according to a number of quantifiable measures, including budgets, staffs, salaries and tenure.

So where does the D.C. Council perform well and where does it do poorly? In terms of racial representation, the D.C. Council accurately reflects the city around it — 54 percent of D.C. residents are African American, as are 58 percent of councilmembers. Hispanics, which constitute nine percent of the city’s residents, don’t have anyone on the council, and women are under-represented, taking up only 25 percent of the seats for the 53 percent of the city’s residents they are.

In fiscal terms, the D.C. Council costs a lot to operate: roughly $19 million a year. Each member takes in on average $130,538 in pay, second only to Los Angeles. (And that’s not including outside pay, which councilmembers can take in — there are five who do.) By comparison, San Antonio legislators make $1,400 a year. On the whole, each council seat costs almost $1.5 million — again second only to Los Angeles. But once you break that down per resident, the budget for each council seat comes to $32.41 per resident, more than double second-place Detroit.