New figures out of the Commerce Department today declare that D.C. was the most expensive place to live in America in 2012 — when compared to the 50 states.

Obviously, comparing the District of Columbia to states doesn’t provide an accurate ranking, even though we want to be one. (How do we reconcile this? I don’t know.) Indeed, when compared to metropolitan areas, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria is beaten (in a good way!) by Urban Honolulu, New York-Newark-Jersey City, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Santa Cruz-Watsonville, and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward.

These areas are ranked using Regional Price Parities, which “measure the differences in the price levels of goods and services across states and metropolitan areas for a given year. RPPs are expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level for each year, which is equal to 100.0.) D.C.’s RPP is 118.2, while our metropolitan area’s is 120.4.

That means the price for goods and services in D.C. was 18 percent higher than national average in 2012. Blame it on rents, which are 57 percent higher. (Again, this is compared to states, not other cities.)

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis also released estimates of real personal income, which grew nationwide between 2011 and 2012 by 2.3 percent. In D.C., that rate of growth was just .4 percent.