Using dcolumn with \underset in LaTeX

Question

I am using the dcolumn package in LaTeX to align by ".". It works well with

\newcolumntype{.}{D{.}{.}{-1}}  
\begin{tabular}{l . . . . . . . . . }

However, I want to include the standard errors of the estimates using \underset{std}{est}.

This causes problems and I can't find a fix. One way around it is to create separate rows for the standard errors. This does not look as nice though. Is there a way around combining \underset and dcolumn or am I facing a trade-off?

---

Thanks, to illustrate, these two examples will work:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}  
\begin{tabular}{l c }  
& \multicolumn{1}{c}{Est.} \\  
$\alpha$ & $\underset{(2.21)}{22.12}$ \\  
$\beta$ & $\underset{(1.82)}{0.32}$ \\  
\end{tabular}  
\end{document}

and

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{dcolumn}
\newcolumntype{.}{D{.}{.}{-1}}  
\begin{document}  
\begin{tabular}{l . }  
& \multicolumn{1}{c}{Est.} \\  
$\alpha$ & $22.12$ \\  
$\beta$ & $1.82$ \\  
\end{tabular}  
\end{document}

... but the combination does not

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{dcolumn}
\newcolumntype{.}{D{.}{.}{-1}}  
\begin{document}  
\begin{tabular}{l . }  
& \multicolumn{1}{c}{Est.} \\  
$\alpha$ & $\underset{2.21}{22.12}$ \\  
$\beta$ & $\underset{1.82}{0.32}$ \\  
\end{tabular}  
\end{document}

Answer 1

The way that dcolumn works means that there really is no way to get an underset or similar construct to work and align correctly. You will need to split the input into two rows, or forego the alignment.