will say one thing though Adder;
Please be careful about how you go about doing things. From what you have posted, it sounds like you got a good group of players and things are running (for the most part) smoothly. And I think you are correct in that the issue is mostly setting as opposed to substance. This is a common problem for many players. And I blame that a little one Shadowrun's 25+ year living history. things get glossed over as time goes by and things don't have as much impact. Also, player's persona lifestyles (Hey! there's that word again!) play into this. The PnP game crowd generally comes from the "better off" tiers of the social strata, so it's hard to imagine poverty. And I mean Real poverty.
Some of us that have travelled have seen this and can convey that a bit better. I have had the unfortunate luck of working a broad and being in the "gleaming towers behind the pearly gates" while everyone else wallows in the literal muck. (And, if you have a soul, its heart wrenching) What a lot of people don't realize is that places like Africa are hot beds of industrial work. It just doesn't go to Africans (by jobsite %). They pull in people like me, with a certain skill set to build, maintain, and work in this sites due to the lack of education in most of Africa. (I am happy to say, that despite some people's effort's, that education is getting through). But you should see the look of absolute vile and hatred we get from the locals (and with good reason. We earn in an hour, what they make in a year in some cases). And along with that comes the despair of deep poverty... child prostitution, sexual slavery for food, murder, and a host of other ills.
Now, take that and apply that to Seattle. Because in reality, THAT is the Seattle of Shadowrun. The line between the rich and the poor is so wide, and the walls so high, each side can not see each other. Read that "Low Lifestyle" again. Water and Power within allotted ration time. You are paying taxes, working 50 hours a week. All your bills are paid up, and YOU are on a ration for water and power? you go look out the window of your 25 floor 350 sq foot apartment at the lights 6 blocks over. The lights that are on 24 hours a day. all that neon and LED. All those holographic displays showing the latest fashions or gizmos. THEY have fountains of water shooting 20 feet in the air every damn 2 minutes! And YOU are on a ration. With all your bills paid up. Sucks to be poor.
Now take your average Squatter. if they are lucky, they can find a place with other squatters, maybe someplace mostly dry. Hopefully it's the number of people there that will keep the real things that go bump in the night away. And there are really REAL things that go bump in the night! Hopefully it's only a stray dog and not a pack. Hopefully it's not a Devil Rat, because if the rat doesn't get you, the diseases it has will. Hopefully it's not ghoul, and a raving mad on at that, those ones try to eat you while your still kicking and screaming... Yea hopefully the numbers will keep the monsters away. But what about the monsters in the camp? We your meal has been dirt mixed with soy for the last 10 days, sickly John in the corner starts looking less like John, and more like steak... And it's not like he was going to live much longer anyways. And when winter rolls around, and the snow starts to collect, and you can feel the frost bite on the edge of setting in taking hold of your finger tips and toes... suddenly Ted's used Jacket isn't Ted's Jacket. It's a tool of survival that you need. Or you Die. Food out of a trash bin would be great, if your neighbours actually threw out anything edible. But knowing them, if they got something in a plastic wrapper, they licked the wrapper clean, several times. Of course, 10 blocks over where all the lights and real people are, restaurants are throwing plates of food away! Too bad there is a 10 meter high cement wall topped with mono-wire and patrolled by drones to keep you out between you and that trash can. All the roads have check points into that gleaming "castle" of full trashcans. Any car can pass, but a person on foot has to go into the checkpoint and show ID (you HAVE a SIN, right??) and the reason for going in. Too bad "Dumpster diving" is against the zone's policies. And the last time you snuck in and got caught, it cost you 3 broken ribs and a black eye. That rattle in chests stuck around for months too...
And then there is Those IN that gleaming city. Working your ass off for a boss in a high stress job. You have to schedule "appointments" with your wife for sex, between the 60 hours paid work, the 20 hours from your home and the 4 to 5 hours sleep you get a night, your a wreck. Every penny you've earned has gone to moving you from that crappy condo you started out in, to the next less crappy condo. Now, after years of work, you own a house! Well, you own a mortgage on a house! And a car even if your knees are next your ears, it's a car! And it's all yours, as long as you make the payments. Oh those payments! Just when you thought you were ahead, every time you bought a new house, it took more time at the office. The circle that never ends.... You need a job to buy shit, Once you have shit you need a better job to afford that shit, you get a better job to afford shit, then you buy more shit... and thus the circle you are running in. So when that one day off a week rolls around and you get to unwind, you actually "go out". And there it is All the bright lights of the city, your reward for all your hard work. And just beyond that is the wall. The wall that keeps those that want to hurt you just because you work for a living. You used to go to Tourist Town with your college mates to "slum it up" when you were younger, but one night you got a good look into the faces of the people that actually live down there... They were full of barely contained rage. Rage at being treated like animals because of circumstance, rage at being taxes and denied for those that actually had SINs, or just plain old denied if they didn't. You thought about trying to explain that it isn't your fault, it's.. jus the way things are. But you can see that they don't care, to them, you personify everything they can't have. Your worry is if the boss will like your report. Their worry is if they will live through the night. You live in the same city as these people, but your are worlds apart. So you are glad that wall is there. Leave the homeless and the SINless on the other side of the wall, they are dangerous, deranged, "They must like to live that way" you tell yourself. And you keep telling it to yourself until you believe it.
*****
Remember, a lot of the social safety nets we think of today are just not there in Shadowrun. Vitas epidemics have slaughtered a quarter of the world population and destroyed the economy in the 201x to 202x's. Then, just when things got stabilized and moving again, Along came the CRASH of 2029(?). And along with that crash of the computers, so did the economy. And so it was again in 2064. If you are looking for a good case study in what a single recession can do to a country, Check out Greece 2002 compared to Greece 2013. Governments are strapped with debt, Corporations only spend where there is an investment and return (so, definitely NOT on welfare programs for non-workers.) The Private Unions are Broken (teamsters, construction, etc) Government Unions are bankrupt either through a series of strikes to get concessions from governments that just couldn't pay, or from attrition of the workforce as governments unload Unionized Public Sector jobs to the private sector.
This means that means that more of the strain for government tax dollars also often falls on the public sector middle class and the private sector lower class. As, generally speaking those of middle class or higher that work for a AA+ rated corp often get Extra-territoriality housing and taxing. (thus removing them from the government's burden, but also taking away from their tax revenue). And, as that strain gets to heavy, and services are cut, those that are marginalized, fall off the tax system, cease contributing to government coffers and putting more strain on the social safety net. Eventually it breaks and services get cut...... And, you get the picture.
Trying to convey THIS breach and interactions that do exist between the "haves" and "have nots" away from our 21th century understanding of social welfare and consciousness, is what your job as a GM is. And if you are able to convey both sides through your NPCs are your PCs interactions with them, you will only help your cause of enriching your players in the SR lore and setting but also show then the real value of the Money they are making and just what other would be willing to do for even some of it (And what they are willing to do, can be and often is, much, much worse then you could possibly imagine)