Salaries in the Realm of Design

The BLS has categories of "Computer Software Engineer" and "Computer Programmer" which are fairly well defined[1]. The gist of their definition is that the prior actually works out the design and implementation, whereas the latter would just be converting literal instructions to code without as much thought put into the process. Or at least that's how I interpreted it, see http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm .

[1] However, even their definition is becoming less clear: "As software design has continued to advance, and some programming functions have become automated, programmers have begun to assume some of the responsibilities that were once performed only by software engineers."